As the Carmelo Anthony countdown continues with no action on the Nets’ landscape — something that could change with one phone call from Denver — a rough week looms to keep the Nets’ collective mind focused on the court.
The Nets see the Spurs tonight. Next, they get the Celtics in Boston on Wednesday. Then All-Star Weekend where it’s probably a good bet phrases and words such as “Carmelo Anthony” and “contract extension” and “trade” will surface.
The trading deadline is 10 days away. Despite owner Mikhail Prokhorov’s deal derailment, many around the NBA consider the Nets very alive in the mix because of their boatload of assets. Though some within the Nets organization fully expect the Nuggets to call back to re-engage talks, the calls have not happened yet, multiple sources contend.
They’ll wait. They plowed through four-plus months of this stuff, what’s 10 more days?
The first order of business is facing the NBA’s best, the Spurs, tonight in Newark, where Avery Johnson admits he’ll feel a “soft spot” for the opposition and his mentor, Gregg Popovich.
Johnson squared off against him while coaching Dallas, but admits every time can feel like the first time.
“Any time I face San Antonio, you’ve got a big soft spot for them because they mean so much to me,” said Johnson, who hit the winning shot in the 1999 NBA Finals, clinching Game 5 for Popovich’s Spurs against the Knicks.
“I mean, my jersey’s retired in the AT&T Center. Pop means so much to me. Tim [Duncan] means so much to me. Peter Holt the owner. R.C. Buford the GM,” Johnson added. “We just go so far back and we’re still friends until this day. So it means a lot. Obviously, when the ball goes up, we’ll try to do our best to win the game, but Pop is my mentor and it’s going to be a pretty good night.”
Johnson readily acknowledges Popovich’s strong influence on his coaching. What did he take first and foremost from the Spurs’ four-time championship coach?
“More than anything, just be consistent. Consistency and discipline. That’s what he’s good at,” Johnson said. “And he really does a great job of communicating with his players where there’s no gray area.”
So the Nets face a rough task trying to bounce back from what had to be one of their most disheartening defeats of the season as they were stomped by the Amar’e Stoudemire-less Knicks, 105-95, on Saturday. Without Stoudemire, the Knicks were turned loose from the perimeter and buried 16 3-pointers, the second largest number of treys the Nets surrendered in their NBA history. That was surpassed only by the 18 the Mavericks hit against them in Dallas on March 5, 1996.
So they can console themselves against the 45-9 Spurs with the NBA’s best record.
“With a team like that, you’ve got to push the pace,” said Devin Harris. “You don’t want to go against their half-court defense. It’s solid. We have similarities in what we do as far as where they like to go so we should know how to attack it.”