After playing six games in the last nine days, the Nets finally got a chance to catch their breath yesterday.
But when they return to the practice court this afternoon ahead of tomorrow’s home game against the Jazz, they’ll be hoping to recapture the formula they had found when they jumped out to an 11-4 start, giving them, at the time, one of the league’s best records.
“We know what we can do when we have a full deck,” Joe Johnson said after Saturday’s 83-82 loss in Chicago. “We showed that early in the season, and we’re just trying to get back to that point.”
Not having their full complement of players, as Johnson referred to, is the easiest explanation for the slide the Nets have suffered in recent weeks, as they’ll enter tomorrow’s game having lost six of their last eight games.
More specifically, the Nets finally have been able to get Brook Lopez out onto the floor, after he sat out seven games with a sprained right foot. The absence of Lopez not only cost the Nets their leading scorer and rim protector, but with Andray Blatche forced to step into his starting spot it also wreaked havoc on the Nets’ second unit, which had been a big strength for them.
“At the beginning of the season when we had our full roster, we were playing some of our best basketball,” Lopez said. “So once we get everyone back on the same page, I definitely think we’ll be all right.”
The one period in which the Nets started to get rolling was when Gerald Wallace was fully healed and returned to the lineup from his sprained left ankle. Beginning with a win over the Clippers at home on Nov. 23, the Nets began a five-game winning streak that included victories over the Knicks in the first meeting between the two teams, as well as one in Boston.
It was in that game against the Celtics, though, when the trouble began. Lopez, who has arguably become the team’s most important player, suffered a minor sprained ligament in his right foot, which knocked him out of the lineup for seven games. The Nets played badly for much of that stretch, including a five-game losing streak and a come-from-behind win over the Raptors Wednesday.
Lopez immediately made a difference in his first two games back, providing a big presence defensively in Friday’s double-overtime win over the Pistons in Brooklyn, then finished with 18 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks in Saturday’s one-point loss in Chicago.
But the Nets still looked stagnant offensively at times, particularly in the second half of the fourth quarter in Chicago after Lopez, who was on a minutes restriction, had to leave the game. The Nets then allowed the Bulls to go on a 12-2 run, which they helped create thanks to several missed shots and three turnovers, which gave Chicago the win.
“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” Deron Williams said. “We really as a whole unit haven’t clicked together offensively all season, as far as everybody getting going at the same time and working for a full game. We’ve had bits and pieces and guys get hot, but we haven’t had everybody on the same page yet.”