BAD BLATCHE: Andray Blatche, one of the Nets’ most consistent players off the bench this season, has gone 9-for-18 from the foul line and is averaging less than four rebounds over Brooklyn’s last eight games – five of which were losses. (
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The Nets head into tonight’s game in Brooklyn against the Spurs — a matchup that kicks off a stretch of seven straight against teams with winning records — with losses in five of their last eight.
That indifferent stretch, including Friday night’s lackluster loss in Washington, has Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo pondering lineup changes in order to shake things up.
“We’ve just got to look at it,” Carleismo said after that 89-74 loss to the Wizards. “Maybe we have to substitute differently. Maybe we can’t put certain guys in the game together. Maybe we can’t continue to give people chances if they’re hurting us defensively or not being able to put the ball in the basket.
“We’ve just got to look at it, because it seems like it’s been a recurring problem. We can’t dig that big a hole. I don’t know. We just have to examine it a little bit better, and just come out Sunday and say, ‘I hope we play good, I hope these guys play good.’
“It’s not working right now.”
A look at the numbers underlines Carlesimo’s point, as the Nets’ bench, for the most part, hasn’t been effective lately. Over the past eight games, which have made up the lowest point of Carlesimo’s tenure since taking over for Avery Johnson in late December, the Nets’ starting lineup of Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Gerald Wallace, Reggie Evans and Brook Lopez has combined to shoot 45.5 percent from the field, and 38.8 percent from 3-point range.
However, the bench has been far less successful, shooting 36.9 percent from the field and 31.7 percent from 3-point range. And when you remove the strong 3-point shooting from Keith Bogans (40 percent) during that stretch, those numbers drop to 35.6 percent and 25.5 percent, respectively.
But the struggles the bench has had recently haven’t been limited to any one person.
Kris Humphries has shot 4-for-19 (21 percent) in that stretch, and is averaging less than four rebounds per game. Guards C.J. Watson and MarShon Brooks, meanwhile, are shooting a combined 33 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3-point range, and Andray Blatche — who has been one of the best and most consistent bench performers for the Nets this season — has gone 9-for-18 from the foul line, and is averaging less than four rebounds per game during that stretch.
It was the bench that was on the floor at the beginning of the second quarter Friday, immediately giving up six points to kick off the quarter, one that ended with the Nets being outscored 30-11, trailing by 20 at halftime and essentially already out of the game.
“It’s not like I know what I’m going to do, but I think the issue is more the people that have been coming off the bench [than the starters],” Carlesimo said. “There’s nights when [the bench has] been an enormous lift and gotten us back in games, or opened games up for us. But when they’ve gone bad, they’ve gone very bad.
“We can’t let that happen, and then you’ve got to come back with guys who you have already stretched out their minutes in the first quarter. Our guys, our bench, has to play well against the other team’s bench, but we can’t dig ourselves the kind of holes we’ve been digging.”