To find out which team has won each of the first four games of the Nets-Raptors first-round playoff series, you don’t have to look further than Deron Williams’ line in the boxscore.
In the Nets’ victories in Games 1 and 3, Williams was spectacular, scoring 24 and 22 points, respectively, and playing some of his most aggressive basketball of the season. In their losses in Games 2 and 4, however, Williams was unable to keep up that level of aggression, fading in and out of the action. He was careless with the ball, shooting a combined 9-for-27 and committing eight turnovers.
“It’s on me,” Williams said after finishing with 10 points, six assists and five turnovers in the Nets’ 87-79 loss to the Raptors in Game 4 Sunday. “I just got to play better.”
As the series shifts back to Toronto, where the two teams will face off in Game 5 Wednesday, whether the Nets will emerge from Air Canada Centre with a second road win in three games could very well come down to how well Williams plays.
It looked like he was going to have another strong game Sunday after opening with eight points and four assists in the first quarter, almost single-handedly keeping the Nets within striking distance, when the rest of his teammates failed to show up for the opening tip.
But Williams disappeared after that, getting just two points, two assists and five shots over the final three quarters as he faded out and became a spectator on the court. When asked about Williams falling out of the picture Sunday during a conference call Monday, Nets coach Jason Kidd said Williams needs to play with high energy for 48 minutes. And if he does, Kidd said, his teammates will respond.
“For Deron, it’s his energy, having high energy and playing with that energy for 48 minutes when he’s out on the floor,” Kidd said. “I thought in that first quarter he was playing with a lot of energy, [but] we just weren’t getting stops on the defensive end.
“Again, for him it’s about playing with that same energy and it’s being aggressive.”
The Nets certainly need to see that kind of aggression from their $100 million point guard for the remainder of the series, especially since the first four games have played out exactly as expected: If Williams played as good or better than his Toronto counterpart, Kyle Lowry, the Nets would win. If not, they wouldn’t.
And with Lowry gamely playing through a right knee injury over the last two games that doesn’t seem likely to go away, there are no excuses for Williams not to outplay him twice over the possible final three games and lead the Nets into a second-round showdown with the two-time defending champion Heat.
“I know I’ve got to be more aggressive,” Williams said. “The last three quarters, I really wasn’t a factor, and so that’s a big part of it.”
If he’s not a factor in two of the next three games, don’t expect to see the Nets in South Florida next week.