Reality took a short holiday last night with the NBA’s worst beating the best. Here were the Nets — that’s right, the 2-25, I’d rather staple my tongue to an ironing board than watch another minute Nets — leading the 20-4, world-champion Lakers in the third quarter.
The Nets were playing with all the passion and energy they sorely lacked the previous night. And they were doing it against a fearsome opponent. Yes, the world was upside down. For a time.
“If we give an effort like that every game, we’ll definitely get a different end result,” Brook Lopez said.
Naturally, it wasn’t nearly enough, as the Lakers prevailed, 103-84.
All the tortures of a season of misery returned for the Nets. There was the mandatory lousy shooting (.378), a requisite injury as Chris Douglas-Roberts sprained his right ankle with 4:47 left, and the near-obligatory loss, though one far easier to accept with the effort but a loss all the same, the Nets’ seventh straight.
“We have to try to find a way to bring it every night. It’s as simple as that. For whatever reason, we aren’t,” said Douglas-Roberts, (20 points), who went for X-rays (negative) and was able to walk afterwards, which he found encouraging. “We don’t have the luxury to turn it on and off.”
Especially against the likes of the Lakers, who got a big night from Kobe Bryant, celebrating his waiting-to-be-signed extension with 29 points, 10 rebounds and five assists amid chants of “MVP” from a storm-thwarted announced crowd of 17,190. Pau Gasol (whose own three-year deal should be done before Bryant’s) had a 14-point, 14-rebound double-double.
“I played well,” Bryant said. “We were a little rusty, but we played much better in the second half.”
The main area of improvement was defensive. The Nets (2-26) rode Devin Harris, who scored 17 of his 21 points in the second quarter, to a 48-46 halftime lead. Harris had a spectacular run with a scoring or passing hand in all but two of the Nets’ final 22 points in the half. Douglas-Roberts did the early heavy lifting, 12 points in the first quarter and Lopez (18 points, 11 rebounds) was steady throughout.
“It was a little taste of how we need to play,” Harris said. “Defensively, we were active. When we get stops we’re able to run.”
Then the Lakers started getting stops and Harris had just four points, all from the line, after halftime. Bryant scored 13 points in the third to deliver Los Angeles from a six-point deficit, 52-46, with 10:17 left in the quarter. In the fourth, the Nets’ frustration amped when Douglas-Roberts landed awkwardly trying to split Shannon Brown and Lamar Odom.
“It was an encouraging X-ray, a Level 1 ankle sprain. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be a high ankle sprain [which is] the worst and I know it’s not that,” said Douglas-Roberts who was in his second game back after a knee injury.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson sympathized with what the Nets have gone through. He suffered a similar situation before his 10 titles started piling up.
“I was here as a New Jersey assistant when they went through a [14]-game losing streak many moons ago,” said Jackson, who was a Nets coach from 1978-81. “I know what it’s like to be around it. That’s over a month and that’s a long period of time to be on a team that has a losing skein. . . . It’s not a lot of fun to be in the locker room after the game.”
But at least this time, the Nets could look in the mirror.
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Nets power forward Yi Jianlian, expects to see his first game action since Nov. 4 on Wednesday. After spraining a knee and sitting five weeks, Yi received a 50-stitch gash in his mouth. Yi said he feels he can help on defense. “We have to help each other,” he said. “We cannot just let a guy drive and do whatever they want.”
Jarvis Hayes (hamstring) said there is no way he’ll play Wednesday. Maybe Saturday. . . . Keyon Dooling (hip flexors) returned from five-game absence.