Let’s play the “$20,000 Pyramid.”
“An egg . . . a rug . . . a grade-school team . . . the Knicks.”
Yup, things the Nets can beat. And if you paid attention, you noticed “the Raptors” were not on the list.
Toronto got 36 points from pending free agent Chris Bosh (hates New Jersey, remember?) and completed a four-game season-series sweep of the woeful Nets, who fell, 100-90, at the Meadowlands last night.
The Raptors, booed off their home court Friday in a 26-point loss to the Thunder, got in at 2:30 a.m., stayed in Manhattan and got waylaid by tunnel traffic.
And they still beat the Nets, who were back at full strength through the returns of Devin Harris (22 points, after a two-game upper-respiratory infection absence) and Yi Jianlian (nine points after missing six games with a high ankle sprain — the Nets would have been better off if he missed seven).
Yi shot 3 of 10 and was invisible defensively. The Nets shot 39.8 percent (33.3 percent in the second half) against the league’s 28th-rated defense.
The Nets blew it in the final 8:07 of the third quarter when they bricked 12 of 15 shots, committed three turnovers and went from a four-point lead to a 10-point deficit.
“It’s frustrating,” Harris said. “Obviously there are key plays we’re not making down the stretch.”
The Nets, who botched a key fast break with 4:26 left to miss a chance to pull within five, are now 7-62, losers of seven straight, trying to avoid breaking the mark of the 1972-73 Sixers, who were an all-time worst 9-73. Chins up — those Sixers lost their final 13 games.
This has been a season to forget in every way for the Nets. Some might crack or quit in these circumstances, especially young players. Chris Douglas-Roberts insists on going forward and playing hard. He feels the perception of him has been skewered and it puzzles him.
“I hate losing more than I like winning,” said Douglas-Roberts, who GM/interim coach Kiki Vandeweghe claimed is back in the rotation for the remainder of the season — he played 12 minutes last night after a 23-point effort in Philly. “The perception of me, I don’t know where it came from. I can’t do anything about that. People read what they want to read, believe what they want to believe.”
What is the perception?
“Bad attitude,” Douglas-Roberts admitted. “But if you put anybody in this situation with the team, honestly, if a guy isn’t upset about this record, about how this has been going, I feel that’d a bad thing.”
True, nobody’s giddy about the 7-62 abnormality. So Douglas-Roberts hates the situation, but having missed 14 games through injury or sitting, he embraces any time.
“As long as you’re playing, no matter what position the team is in, you have to compete,” said the second-year wing who readily admits his confidence was “tampered with” by the uneven playing time. “I’m still playing basketball. Every game is important.”
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Brook Lopez (18 points, 13 rebounds) dismissed his leaving the court after practice Friday in anger.
“Practice was over. I was frustrated,” said Lopez. “Nothing happened in that practice. It’s just this whole season. I can’t put it into words.”