This was supposed to be a showcase for these new-look Nets, a noon matinee on Christmas Day in their palatial new home in Brooklyn against one of the league’s marquee teams in the Celtics.
Instead, all yesterday’s lackluster 93-76 loss to Boston in front of a sellout crowd inside Barclays Center did was leave everyone wondering what’s happened to this team.
A month ago, the Nets looked like a legitimate contender in the Eastern Conference when, after knocking off the Clippers and Knicks, they went into Boston, controlled all aspects of the game and emerged with a hard-fought win over their Atlantic Division rivals to improve to 10-4.
“I thought that was a turning point for us,” said Gerald Wallace. “We showed real heart, we fought with them, we played physical, we played great team offense and defense in Boston. We were able to control that game throughout, and I thought it was the start of us moving up.”
The Nets (14-13) have gone backwards since then, with yesterday’s loss dropping them to 3-9 this month. After Brook Lopez left that win over the Celtics in Boston with a sprained right foot, the cohesive rotation Nets coach Avery Johnson had developed immediately evaporated, forcing him to try something new seemingly every game in an effort to recapture it.
“I wish I knew,” Deron Williams said when asked what has changed. “I wish I knew.”
It is something that has remained an issue even after Lopez has returned. After putting together arguably the best stretch of his career before he got hurt, Lopez simply isn’t being as aggressive at both ends of the floor, often opting to fade away from contact instead of powering through it.
Meanwhile, the All-Star backcourt of Williams and Joe Johnson has struggled to find the proper balance. While the two of them have had excellent individual games, rarely have they gotten going on the same night. Neither one got going at all yesterday, with Johnson going 4-for-14 from the field while Williams finished with 10 points and six assists to go with four turnovers.
But for all of their offensive woes, the bigger issue is their tendency to drop their heads the moment things start to work against them. It’s a problem that has shown up time and time again, as the Nets have lost several games because they were unable to fight back after their opponents reeled off a big run.
That’s exactly what happened yesterday. After the Nets fell behind by double digits in the second quarter when the Celtics went on a 17-2 run, they never were able to get back into the game.
“You can’t be a front-running team, a team that only can have energy and have enthusiasm when things are going well,” said Jerry Stackhouse. “Things are going to go bad in an NBA game, in some NBA games and during an NBA season, and we’ve just got to get better at that.
“We’ve got some young guys that haven’t really won at a huge level, and that’s part of it. Having that mentality that when things go rough, that we can weather the storm. I don’t know if that’s a mentality that we have yet, but you can grow into that.”
They need to grow into it fast. A month ago, this team looked like it was capable of living up to the lofty expectations placed upon it after billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov committed more than $330 million in contracts to renovate the roster this past summer.
Now it looks like one that could give him buyer’s remorse.