Game 12 Recap: Nets 98, Trail Blazers 85. The One Where Reggie, Brook, and Hump Got All The Rebounds

With every game he plays well in, Joe Johnson is looking more and more like a steal for the Nets

Winning their fifth-straight game at Barclays Center, the Nets rebounded (literally) from a bad first half effort to blow away the undermanned Portland Trail Blazers in the second half. Missing All-Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland didn't have a key cog in their lineup, but that didn't stop them from jumping out to a four-point lead at half behind rookies Damian Lillard and Meyers Leonard in addition to J.J. Hickson and Wesley Matthews as well. Luckily for the Nets, those guys cooled down after the intermission and Brooklyn's guys heated up. 

The third quarter woes that plagued the Nets during some of their earlier losses this season have been thankfully absent from the last two games, counting this afternoon's game of course. In the third quarter, D-Will came out with a vengeance, the vengeance that he expresses with intensity during close games in which he feels he has to take over. That's what he did right out of the break, driving at the rim fiercely on the undersized Lillard, first getting an easy layup, missing the next one, and then getting blocked. Maybe he didn't get the results he wanted from those drives, but the tone was set for the Nets, and that led them to even up the score by the end of that quarter just to run away with the game in the fourth.

Game 12 Preview: Portland Trail Blazers (6-6) at Brooklyn Nets (7-4)

The Blazers drafted Damian Lillard (above) with the 6th-overall pick they received from the Nets in exhange for Gerald Wallace. So far, that trade has worked out pretty well for both teams.

When: 3:00 pm; Sunday, November 25th, 2012

Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY

TV: YES Network
  
When the Nets traded their lottery pick (which became the 6th-overall selection)--along with the expiring contracts of Shawne Williams and Mehmet Okur-- in the upcoming 2012 NBA Draft to the Portland Trail Blazers on March 16th of last season for Gerald Wallace, there was considerable derision and disagreement with the decision from the Nets perspective. Bloggers, writers, TV and radio analysts, and others mocked how silly it was for the Nets, a rebuilding team, to give up a sure lottery pick for an aging Wallace with the option to sign anywhere in the NBA once his contract was up that summer.

We all know how that trade turned out; the Blazers drafted Damian Lillard from Weber State with the pick and the young pint guard has been a revelation for Portland, scoring 20.2 points and 6.0 assists per game just 12 games into his rookie campaign. His Blazers are only 6-6 so far, but they are rebuilding and Lillard has certainly shown that his talent warranted the high draft selection and that he will be a mainstay in the backcourt in Portland for a long time, playing at an All-Star level most likely.

Gerald Wallace isn't near an All-Star berth at this point in his career, but he has done exactly what the Nets have needed and expected him to do, and more. The trade was completed by Billy King with the foresight that the Nets team he would be rebuilding would have a defensive deficiency and he needed someone like Gerald in the starting lineup to serve as the lone defensive specialist in a group of offensive-focused players. There's nothing wrong with valuing offense over defense, it's just that all successful and contending teams in the NBA have a balanced mixture of both. Of course, the Nets representation of offensive and defensive balance is Gerald anchoring the defense by guarding the opposing team's best wing player, lightening the load on his teammates and just helping his team win in general by limiting how much the other team scores on a nightly basis.