SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Nets were lauded all summer for the team they put together on paper.
That paper isn’t worth very much right now.
The Nets (2-5) were blown off the court Wednesday night, losing 107-86 to the Kings (2-5) in front of 15,122 inside Sleep Train Arena in a game that wasn’t even that close. Now losers of three straight and four of their last five, the Nets look nothing like the championship contending team they spent the summer and all of training camp saying they plan on being this season.
“This is about finding out who we are and what we have in this locker room,” Jason Terry said. “When it started, it looked good on paper. But can we figure it out as a group?”
“I hope,” said Paul Pierce, “this was a wake up call to start the trip.”
It was Pierce who said following Saturday’s loss to the undefeated Pacers in Brooklyn that this three-game West Coast trip was an opportunity for this Nets to get things turned around, and starting off with a game against the Kings, one of the younger teams in the league and one which came into Wednesday night’s game losers of five straight, looked like the perfect place for that to start.
Instead, the Nets made the Kings look like a playoff team, shooting a meager 37.8 percent from the field while committing 15 turnovers that led to 20 Kings points.
Many of those Brooklyn shots were in close at the rim, with the Nets having plenty of them rattle in and out. That was especially true inside, with the Nets somehow going 12-for-35 (34.3 percent) on shots in the paint through the first three quarters.
But the Nets then allowed those missed shots to impact them on defense, where they repeatedly allowed the Kings to get open for wide- open jumpers or to cut down the lane for open layups and dunks.
It was something Nets coach Jason Kidd pointed out after the game, and not for the first time this season, either — mistakes normally associated with young, inexperienced teams, as opposed to a veteran-laden one that is expected to contend now.
“It’s not acceptable,” Kidd said. “We hang our hats at the defensive end. Clearly, in our losses, we let go of the rope on the defensive end, and whenever you do that it’s not going to work in this league no matter who you play.”
The Kings put the Nets away early, going on a 22-4 run from the 2:34 mark of the first quarter through the 5:44 mark of the second, giving Sacramento a 41-23 lead that it would never relinquish. They made a couple of brief runs to try and get back into the game, including cutting the lead to nine early in the third quarter before the Kings responded with another 12-0 run that put the game away for good.
“It’s not a good feeling in here,” said Kevin Garnett, who finished with six points and eight rebounds in 14 minutes. “But no one said this process is going to be easy.“The mentality in here now is it’s just all of us in here, and we’ve created this hole and it’s up to us to dig ourselves out of it.”
The Nets have talked a lot about the process of this team coming together over the last six weeks, but it’s hard to imagine they thought the process could lead to this kind of start.
“We’re going to use that excuse for now,” Terry said of the Nets needing time to get all of their new pieces to fit together.
“At the same time, this is basketball at the end of the day. If we were playing five-on-five pickup at the park, and you were getting your [butt] whooped, three or four runs now, when are you going to pick it up and get a game, get a win, stay on the court?”
They will get their next chance Friday night in Phoenix.