BROKE-LYN: Joe Johnson, Brook Lopez, Keith Bogans and Deron Williams show the strain of Wednesday’s 100-86 loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden that dropped their record to 13-12 on the season after an 11-4 start. (Getty Images)
Reeling from a stunning slide over the past three weeks, the Nets undoubtedly spent yesterday’s off-day trying to put their current dismal stretch of play behind them.
The Nets got off to a terrific start, with an 11-4 record and wins over the Knicks, Clippers and twice over the Celtics, but have since fallen on hard times, dropping eight of their last 10 games — including Wednesday’s 100-86 defeat to the Knicks at the Garden — and now rest just one game over .500 (13-12).
“It’s surprising, especially with how we started,” Deron Williams said after Wednesday’s loss. “We had two five-game winning streaks and it seemed like we were rolling pretty well, and then we just kind of hit a snag, and can’t figure out how to get our confidence back as a group.”
After the Nets beat the Magic in Orlando on Nov. 30 to improve to 11-4, it looked as if the more than $330 million in current and future dollars billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov had poured into the massive overhaul of the team’s roster over the summer had turned Brooklyn into a top-level team in the Eastern Conference.
But since then, the Nets have plummeted, going 2-8 in December and 1-5 at home. They even needed a Joe Johnson buzzer-beater in double-overtime to defeat the Pistons in their only home victory of the month. The Nets haven’t found a way to get back on track after beginning their slide when Brook Lopez went down with a sprained right foot.
Wednesday’s loss to the Knicks — the second defeat to their crosstown rivals in a little more than a week — highlighted a recurring theme this season for the Nets, who have seen countless leads evaporate with poor performances in the third quarter. That happened again in their first trip of the year to the Garden, as an 18-6 Knicks’ run to end the third quarter saw the Nets give up the lead for good.
Now, with three days between Wednesday’s loss and their next game Sunday, back in Brooklyn against the Sixers, the Nets are hoping the break in the schedule will allow them to clear their heads and allow them to start to turn things around.
“I think so,” Gerald Wallace said. “[We can] kind of look back and see what’s going on and kind of get away from these back-to-backs and four in five days, and get yourself refreshed and go back at it again.”
They’ll get back at it today, when they return to the practice floor in the hope of figuring out what has caused a team that not too long ago was competing for the best record in the Eastern Conference to suddenly see things fall apart.
“When I look at the guys that are in the locker room, I look at those guys every day and they feel bad,” coach Avery Johnson said.
“We’re going to keep them encouraged, we’re going to get back in the lab [today] and work on some parts of our game, work some parts on our game [tomorrow] and get this bad taste out of our mouths.”