Yeah, I'm not really that confident about that whole "Deron Williams wanting to stay on the Nets in free agency this year because he thinks they can be a playoff contender" thing anymore. I say that because of the gut-wrenching and simply devastating loss D-Will's (current) team had against the lowly Hornets at the Prudential Center last night. Gerald Wallace's Nets debut was ruined by the brutal effort which was soured in the 4th quarter after the Nets held a 12-point lead after the first 36 minutes of the game.
Through the first three quarters of this game, the Nets looked like the superior team that was healthy and had solid team chemistry. The ball was moving around the court great; emphasized by an awesome layup alley-oop from D-Will to Gerald Wallace, who had a solid debut, sprinkled in with a few open Anthony Morrow and Gerald Green 3-pointers. D-Will took on more of a distributor role as his shot just wasn't falling (9-24 shooting) but the Nets could have used more scoring from him to put away the pesky Hornets who hung around in the game riding on the trio of Chris Kaman, Marco Belinelli, and Jarrett Jack.
The Nets headed into the 4th-quarter with a 82-70 lead on the power of a late 3rd-quarter 7-0 run capped off by a Wallace buzzer-beating corner 3-pointer with no time left in the period. Then, disaster and catastrophe ensued. The Hornets outscored the Nets 32-12 in the period and won the game powered by eight points from D-League call-up Lance Thomas, the longest jump-shot of Kaman's career, a 3-point bomb from Jack, and the dagger 3 from Belinelli. Utterly horrifying, the end of this game was so bad that I couldn't look away. (Cue the whole "like a car accident, too terrible you can't walk away" thing).
This loss puts the Nets 6.5 games back from 8th-place in the East but was just so demoralizing that it effectively ends the team's pursuit of the playoffs. With just 20 games left and this team stuck in all sorts of bad right now, I can't see a way that the Nets overcome the mass of teams ahead of them in the playoff race. To be honest, it's not looking good for D-Will to stay in the offseason, same with Wallace. Why would they remain with a team as dysfunctional as the Nets?
Some other observations I had from the game: Marco Belinelli has officially become a Nets killer. In his last three games vs the Nets, the Italian shooting guard is averaging 17 points per game and last night, he had 20 points and was simply unstoppable from behind the arc. No Net defender, even Wallace, could stick with him and he kept getting wide-open looks from behind the arc...DeShawn Stevenson didn't enter the game at all. I was not upset with this...Sundiata Gaines didn't enter the game at all. I was overjoyed by this...Even though he didn't have a great shooting night, newcomer Gerald Wallace played very well, especially on defense. He had trouble guarding New Orleans shooters from 3-point range but was a force in the paint as Gerald blocked three Hornets shots and had a Sportscenter-worthy one on a fast-break early in the game...Gerald Green scored 16 points on 6-13 shooting. Get this man a contract!
Looking Ahead
The Nets continue their homestand on Monday night against the Cavaliers of Cleveland.
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