PORTLAND – Here are my three thoughts on the Nets’ 124-80 loss to the Trail Blazers Wednesday night:
1. There isn’t exactly a shortage of negative things to focus on when a team loses by as big a margin as it has in about a decade, but the biggest disappointment in Wednesday night’s destruction at the hands of the Blazers has to be Andray Blatche.
Going up against a Blazers team missing its top two power forwards and four of its top five big men, Blatche appeared to have an opportunity to have his way inside. Instead, he looked tentative from the start, jacking up jumpers and looking indecisive with his finishes on the times he took it to the rim. Not to mention he was dreadful defensively.
All of that added up to Blatche finishing the night 1-for-6 from the field and with grand totals of two points and two rebounds in 13:45, while sitting out the second half. It was the bad side of what Blatche can bring the Nets, something that could just as easily be counterbalanced by an excellent performance in Denver on Thursday.
This is what you get with Blatche — the potential for both excellent and awful performances on any given night. He has been more good than bad this season for sure, averaging 11.8 points and 5.5 rebounds, and the Nets could certainly use a bounce-back showing from him against the Nuggets.
2. The lack of a third reliable point guard on the roster became an issue in this game when both Deron Williams and Shaun Livingston quickly picked up two fouls and exited before the end of the first quarter. The Nets tried to make do with Alan Anderson running the show for a few minutes — before this season Anderson hadn’t played point guard since, in his estimation, his freshman year of college — but like everything else that happened in this game it didn’t go very well.
Given their remaining open roster spot, it would make sense if the Nets took a look at another point guard, since they clearly don’t trust recently-acquired Marquis Teague to play important minutes. I thought Beno Udrih could be a potentially nice fit as a ball handler and 3-point shooter, but he was claimed by the Grizzlies off waivers Wednesday.
It doesn’t seem likely the Nets will use that final open roster spot anyway, given the exorbitant luxury tax cost that would come with it. But if they don’t and they suffer any injury to either Williams or Livingston, it would leave them awfully short-handed at a crucial position.
3. Wednesday’s loss was understandably awful on virtually every level. That being said, the Nets came into this six-game Western road trip with three games they expected to win — the Jazz, Lakers and Bucks — and needed to just steal one of their games against the Warriors, Trail Blazers and Nuggets to have a successful trip.
Although they gave away the Warriors game in many respects and were destroyed by the Blazers, a win against Denver would set them up for a possible 4-2 trip — and, by association, a successful one — if they beat the hapless Bucks Saturday. It would be a nice way for the Nets to erase the stench of Wednesday’s horrible performance, that’s for sure.
And, actually, Wednesday’s game being so awful might benefit the Nets against Denver. They’ll likely have Kevin Garnett available after he played just 13 minutes against Portland, and no starter played more than 26 minutes. That, combined with the Nuggets being in freefall (they’ve lost eight of their last 10 and three straight), makes this a much more winnable game than the usual trip to Denver on the second half of a back-to-back would be.