Game 7 Preview: Boston Celtics (5-3) at Brooklyn Nets (4-2)

Kevin Garnett is scary both on and off the court.

When: 8:00 pm; Thursday, November 15th, 2012

Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY

TV: TNT (Marv Albert is doing the play-by-play!)
 
Three-game winning streaks haven't been all that common for the Nets in recent years. Other than one they had from March 28th-31st of last season, the franchise's last streak of that length was all the way back in the 2008-09 campaign, when they finished up their annual West Coast Thanksgiving road trip with three straight victories against the Kings, Jazz, and Suns. Now, the Nets find themselves in that unusual--yet still completely awesome--position of having won their last three games in a row and can extend that streak to four games if they can hold off the Celtics tonight in Brooklyn. Granted, that won't be an easy task as Boston owns the Nets, winning the last three meetings and, going back even further, winning 18 of the last 20 games between these two squads.

Boston is on its own three-game winning streak right now, with wins coming against the Bucks, Bulls, and the Jazz. In the most recent victory, coming last night at home over Utah, the Celtics improved their season record to 5-3 behind a 23-point performance by Paul Pierce, who was helped out with twin 16-point games by reserves Jeff Green and Leandro Barbosa. Both the Nets and Celtics are on top of their games right now, but those hot streaks haven't come without their fair share of consequences. Of course, those consequences are key pieces not being available due to injury.

Reviewing My First Regular Season Visit to Barclays Center

As I mentioned before on here, my first regular season game at the Barclays Center was on Monday night, the night of the Nets' excruciating loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. My dad and I took the train from Long Island to Atlantic Terminal to get to Barclays Center in time for the 7:30 game.

Because of Hurricane Sandy and its lingering effects on the New York metropolitan area's mass transit system, the LIRR was only offering trains every hour from the Island to the the city. Obviously, this complicated getting to Brooklyn a little bit. But, once I stepped out of the terminal and saw the bright blue lettering of the Barclays Center, my mind was on the game, and the arena as well.

Let me break my visit into a few categories to make the review a little more comprehensive:

Game 2 Preview: Minnesota Timberwolves (1-1) at Brooklyn Nets (1-0)

A Band-Aid: A perfect symbol of the 2012-12 Minnesota Timberwolves

UPDATE: Gerald Wallace (ankle) and Josh Childress (ankle) are both out for tonight's game. Keith Bogans will start in place of Wallace.

When: 7:30 pm; Monday, November 5th, 2012

Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY

TV: YES Network/NBATV

We've already won one game as the Brooklyn Nets, why not go for two? That's the question the Nets will be asking themselves tonight as they take on the injury-plagued Minnesota Timberwolves in the second regular season game ever at the Barclays Center. Both the Nets and the T-Wolves won their season opener's--the Nets' against the Raptors and the T-Wolves' against the Kings--and both will be looking to stay above .500 early on the 2012-13 NBA season.

Another similarity between these two teams is that they played their last game against the Raptors, to varying levels of success. As mentioned above, the Nets defeated Toronto on Saturday night by a score of 107-100, led by Brook Lopez' 27 points and 19 points and nine assists from Deron Williams. 

Minnesota wasn't as lucky. 

At the Air Canada Centre last night, they were handled with relative ease by the hometown Raps by a score of 105-86. As they did against the Nets, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan led the offensive effort for Toronto, each scoring 22 points on the night. The T-Wolves--led by 17 points from Andrei Kirilenko and 15 points from Nikola Pekovic--just didn't have an answer for the Raptor backcourt, a fact certainly exacerbated by J.J. Barea suffering a mild concussion in the second quarter. Further hurting the already-injured Wolves' backcourt, Barea wouldn't return in the game and his status is questionable for tonight's game.

Game 1 Recap: Nets 107, Raptors 100

At some points, especially later in the game, the Nets' help defense was phenomenal, like in the picture above. At other points, like in the 1st quarter, that wasn't the case.

One regular season game in Brooklyn, one win. That's the way the Nets, their fans, and coach Avery Johnson like it. In their first-ever regular season game as the Brooklyn Nets, the Nets beat the divisional foe Toronto Raptors in a game that was exciting, entertaining, nerveracking in a Nets fashion, but also downright fun. Sure, it's only the first game of the year against a team that probably won't make the playoffs, but it's still a win. And any win for the Nets of the past few seasons was monumental. Hopefully last night's triumph is a sign of change.

A win didn't look to be in the immediate-future for the Nets after the first quarter of action Saturday night since the Raptors jumped out of the gates fast, and took a 35-27 lead after 12 minutes of play. In those 12 minutes, the worst fears of those surrounding the Nets for this season were realized: the defense was terrible, offense mostly stagnant, and the fast pace of the game' tempo made the team look discombobulated all around. However, a paradigm shift arose after that poor first frame and the Nets appeared to wake up, got some great contributions from their bench players, and snared a 60-52 lead by halftime, after a second quarter in which they outscored Toronto by a score of 33-17.

For the most part, the Nets were in control from the beginning of the third quarter until the game clock buzzed after 48 minutes of play. The game could have been easily put out of reach by Brooklyn in the third period as they climbed to a 73-59 advantage on a Deron Williams three-pointer with 6:56 remaining. A few defensive stops and effective offensive possessions could have tilted the game' balance in only the Nets' favor but no, the Raptors hung around for a little bit longer. Cutting the deficit to six points after the third quarter, Toronto seemed poised to steal a win from the new-look Brooklyn squad and inched within two points of the Nets a few times in the fourth but just couldn't get over the hump to take the lead. A Brook Lopez three-point play with just 59 ticks left sealed the deal beyond any doubt.

Netlinked 10/8/12: Preseason Begins (For Other NBA Teams), Nets Have 1st Barclays Practice, Gerald Wallace Afraid of NYC

A-V-E-R-Y coaching up his new team at the new digs

It's official, the NBA preseason for the 2012-13 season has officially started. Well, to be fair, it started on Friday night when the Celtics lost to Fenerbahce, a Turkish team that has two players which the Nets hold the draft rights to. Those guys are Ilkan Karaman and Bojan Bogdanovic, who combined to score 15 points in their team's stunning upset of Boston.

There were also a bunch of games on Saturday and Sunday including Nets South (the Atlanta Hawks) beating the Heat and LeBron (no Wade due to injury) and the Nuggets beating the LA Clippers in Las Vegas on a buzzer-beating layup by Ty Lawson. However, unfortunately, the Nets don't open up their preseason circuit until this upcoming Saturday, October 13th, in Atlantic City, NJ against the 76ers.

Nets' Jersey Unveiled at Jay-Z Concert, Same As Leaked Ones

The stars, like new Dodgers co-owner and NBA legend, came out on Friday night for the official debut of the Barclays Center with Jay-Z show.

As was announced awhile ago, the Brooklyn Nets' jerseys for the 2012-13 season were unveiled during the official opening of the Barclays Center, by minority owner and rap star Jay-Z wearing a black Nets road uniform on stage.

The very jersey that Jay-Z wore last night was leaked a week ago by someone on the Internet and the simple, black-and-white design of the jersey, which is echoed in the look of the Barclays Center itself, sent ripples throughout the sports world. In today's modern world, a plain uniform design was deemed as unusual but granted, not much about the inception and development of the Brooklyn Nets franchise was usual. A Russian majority owner, a rap mogul minority owner, a groundbreaking case of eminent domain in New York City? Not all things that other franchises face, but things necessary for the Brooklyn Nets to become a thing.

Also, as noted in the first link above, last night's concert signaled the 1st time Brooklyn Nets jerseys were to be sold on NBAStore.com and BrooklynNets.com, as the new uni's became available soon after the concert was over. Last night marked a true milestone in the Nets' history as a franchise, as more milestones are soon to come in the upcoming weeks, with the team's 1st regular season game scheduled for just over a month from now.

My Tour of the Barclays Center

As a season-ticket holder of the Nets (shared with my dad, as equally die-hard Nets fan as myself), my dad and I were able to participate in the 1st public tour of the Barclays Center on Monday. The arena's much-hyped ribbon-cutting event was on Friday, and not being able to attend that day, we figured that a tour would suffice. During my tour, which was awesome, I took a lot of pictures, ate a lot of food, and awed at the wondrous arena that was in the making for nine years before coming to fruition.

When I walked into the Barclays Center and saw the Nets new logo plastered everywhere, I knew that it had finally come true. This team was in Brooklyn and was to be relevant yet again. Below is my diary of sorts as to how my first visit to the Nets' state-of-the-art home went:

I took the train from Long Island with my dad to Brooklyn and it was a relatively pleasant ride, round-trip of about one hour and 20 minutes give or take a few. One of the first references I saw to the Barclays Center that I saw in the Atlantic Terminal after my train ride was this sign, and even though plain and in stock NYC mass transit font, it hit home for me that I wasn't going to the Meadowlands or Newark to see the Nets, I was going to Brooklyn and the Barclays Center.

For All Intensive Purposes, Here Are Your New (Leaked) Brooklyn Nets Jerseys

I don't love the new threads, I really would like some gray on both the home and away uni's, but I really shouldn't complain. The black and white look is dominant and kinda intimidating, as if Reggie Evans on the glass wasn't enough.

I know they officially are supposed to be released to the public on September 28th, but this latest leak of the Brooklyn Nets' first jerseys, found by the great guys at NetsDaily, seems to be legit. We obviously won't know for sure if these are the real deal until the 28th, but work on the assumption that they are, considering a bunch of major basketball outlets and Nets sites ran the same leak earlier today. Welcome to your new franchise, Brooklyn Nets fans, these are our jerseys for the future and hopefully they bring us some winning luck. No more red alternates ever again.

Netlinked 9/11/12: Dominic McGuire Signs With Toronto and The Barclays Center's Court is Unveiled

This would be the nicest court in the NBA by far. Photo credit: http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1349568/Barclays_Center_Interior_with_Court2.jpg

 We've got another jampacked Netlinked today on Brooklyn Balling with some good news and some bad news. We'll start off with the bad news first:

Dominic McGuire, whom the Nets were reportedly going to work out, has signed a partially-guaranteed training camp deal with the Raptors, our division rivals to the north. As I wrote a few days ago, McGuire would have been a nice fit with this Nets' team, a team without many rebounders or defensive specialists, two niches that McGuire fills.

Moving on,  a much-awaited milestone in the construction of the Barclays Center was completed today as the Nets' home court for the 2012-13 season and beyond was finalized and unveiled today (link has pictures!). As everything with the Brooklyn Nets has been so far, the court is certainly unconventional andis what is known as herringbone-patterned, a term I looked up on Wikipedia and found to mean "an arrangement of rectangles used for floor tilings and road pavement".

It's definitely unique and as CEO Brett Yormark said in the link above, it has the chance to be iconic as a floor design, similarly to the parquet floor that is so recognizable at the TD Garden in Boston.

Netlinked 9/4/12: It's Too Early To Call the Nets A True Part of Brooklyn

This is a sign many Nets will see when they head from the Barclays Center after games back to wherever they reside for the season; be that in New Jersey, Manhattan, or anywhere else for that matter.

New Nets beat-writer for the New York Times, Howard Beck, published an interesting piece in today's paper about how the Nets need time to truly become a fabric of Brooklyn's very complex and interesting culture. He cites how no Nets plan to live in Brooklyn during this upcoming season as many will chose to be closer to the team's current practice facility, the PNY Center in East Rutherford, NJ, the same place the team has practiced since they played at the nearby Izod Center.

It is for this reason that Beck says that until the Nets establish a brand-new practice facility in Brooklyn itself (sites in the borough as being visited by the Nets' front office currently), no one on the team will live in Brooklyn thus distancing the Nets from the borough they represent. It's an interesting point nailed down by the final lines of the article:

Brooklyn seems ready to adopt the Nets. It may be a while before the Nets adopt Brooklyn.

I haven't thought of this before, the fact that the Nets' only true current connection to Brooklyn is where they play and what's on the front of their jerseys. However, that idea will probably become naught in the upcoming seasons when the Nets start to practice in Brooklyn and develop legitimate roots in the storied borough. And when that happens, it's gonna be even more fun and exciting to be a Nets fan than it is now.