Game 34 Preview: Nets (9-24) at New York Knicks (16-16)

Personally, I think that Lin is more hype than actual talent.  Boy do I hope that I'm right.

The Nets look to rebound from one of their worst performances of the season, a crushing home loss to the injury-plagued Milwaukee Bucks, against the Linsanity-led Knicks. Even though Brook Lopez made his season debut last night in the loss, Avery Johnson has said that he will hold the star center out of tonight's game, so the Nets will be once again without a true 5. That might be a tough task as the Knicks have a solid rebounding and shot-blocking center in Tyson Chandler who will pose a major match-up problem for New Jersey. The Nets also might have trouble in containing Jeremy Lin, who started his crazy tear through the NBA two weeks ago in a win over this very New Jersey team. Oh yeah, and New York also has Amar'e Stoudamire and Carmelo Anthony, who is coming back from injury. Yes, it would be accurate to say I'm not the most confident that the Nets will leave MSG with a win later tonight.

Background on New York

As mentioned above, the Knicks are on a completely different spectrum than the Nets are right now as they have won eight of their last nine games, don't have any injuries to important players to deal with, and have multiple scoring weapons that they can count on. With the recent signing of swingman J.R. Smith, New York has tons of weapons that can score and shoot at lethal rates which is terrible news for the Nets, who haven't been able to guard the perimeter well the whole season. There is a silver lining for the Nets as the Knicks still haven't put together great chemistry with all of their new pieces. New York also has an odd propensity for home losses to really bad teams like the Bobcats, Raptors, Bucks, and even the Hornets, a category in which the Nets definitely apply. 

Previous Game
The Knicks played their best game of the Linsanity-era yesterday afternoon in a win against the defending-champion Dallas Mavericks. New York raced out to a 32-20 lead after the 1st quarter predicated on uncharacteristically great movement on offense and swarming defense on the Mavs' weapons. However, they blew their lead in the 3rd quarter and Dallas took their own 12-point lead. Then, another player off the Knick bench, Steve Novak, sparked New York into retaking the lead and securing the win with a few huge 3-pointers in the 4th quarter. 


The Nets simply didn't show up in an awful let-down loss to the Milwaukee Bucks last night at the Prudential Center. Brook Lopez looked extremely rusty in his season debut, missing six of his 11 free throw attempts en route to only nine points and two rebounds in 21 minutes of play. The big story of this game was how Ersan Ilyasova simply went off for career-highs in points (29) and rebounds (25), a performance that was really helped by the terrible rebounding by the Nets which dropped off steeply from Saturday's win over the Bulls. D-Will, once again, was forced to be one of the only consistent Nets on offense as he scored 26 points but didn't really shoot well (10-for-24 from the field). Anthony Morrow was a rare bright spot for the Nets with 17 points on efficient 7-for-11 shooting.

Probable Lineups 

NJN- D.Williams (PG), Brooks (SG), Stevenson (SF), Humphries (PF), She. Williams (C)

NYK- Lin (PG), Bill Walker (SG), Fields (SF), Stoudamire (PF), Chandler (C)

Three Keys to a Nets Victory

1. Defend the perimeter at all costs- As evidenced in yesterday's win over Dallas, the Knicks can't win if they don't hit their 3-pointers. Sharpshooters like Steve Novak and J.R. Smith hit huge shots late in the game from behind-the-arc and if they didn't hit those open shots, the Knicks don't win that game. I realize that the Nets' perimeter d has been awful all season but if they re somehow able to contest the Knicks' 3-point attempts, then they contain the Knicks on offense and maybe get a win.

2. Pressure the turnover-prone Lin- I'll admit that Jeremy Lin has been sensational in his 9-game run but his glaring weakness has been with turning over the ball. When Lin is pressured, especially by double-team, he shows his inexperience with ill-advised passes which lead to tons of turnovers and fast-break points for opponents. The Knicks are a lot less effective on offense when Lin commits turnovers and they become a beatable team, as shown by their loss to the Hornets a few days ago.

3. Rebound, rebound, rebound- It's as simple as that. If the Nets rebound even somewhat decently against Milwaukee, then they win the game. If they don't rebound against the Knicks, then expect a blow-out, and the Nets won't be the winning team. 

Prediction

I think it will be closer than most people think, but the Knicks will still prevail. 97-91 New York.