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.

Game 1 Preview: Toronto Raptors (0-1) at Brooklyn Nets (0-0)

Finally, the Barclays Center court will see some NBA regular season action tonight

When: 7:30 pm; Saturday, November 3rd, 2012

Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY

TV: YES Network


Ok folks, it's really here. No, actually. Unless some other event beyond our control strikes the NYC Metro area in the next few hours, there will be basketball played at the Barclays Center--regular season NBA basketball--involving the Brooklyn (!) Nets and the Canadian Prehistoric Creatures Toronto Raptors. As you all must know by now, tonight's game was originally supposed to be the Nets' second game of the 2012-13 NBA season, as their November 1st game in Brooklyn against the Knicks was postponed to November 26th because of Hurricane Sandy.

The Raptors' first game of the season, played on Wednesday against the Pacers, wasn't affected by the storm. Toronto fell 90-88 to Indiana at the Air Canada Centre as Kyle Lowry, picked up by the Raptors from the Houston Rockets via trade over the summer, scored 21 points, grabbed seven boards, dished out eight assists and even nabbed five steals as well in the losing effort. Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon added in 16 and 15 points respectively for the Raps on the game.

Anyway, lets go back to the Nets. Tonight's game, albeit against the Raptors instead of the higher-profile Knicks, is much more than a singular game, or a tallymark in either the W or L column. It represents the culmination of years and years of planning by Nets' management to move the embattled franchise from the doldrums of New Jersey to the bright lights of the Big Apple. A win doesn't mean that much, a loss doesn't mean that much. The truth is that for tonight, that youth sports cliche of "All that matters is that you play the game" rings true. The Nets are playing a regular season home game at the Barclays Center and that's all that matters.

Josh Childress Out For Saturday's Opener Against Toronto

The Nets picked up Childress over the summer for the veteran's minimum, on a low-risk, medium-reward kind of signing

On Saturday night, when they open up the Barclays Center against the Raptors, the Nets will be without one of their offseason pickups. Josh Childress is expected to miss the game due to soreness he is experiencing in his sprained left ankle. Childress aggravated the ankle in the the Nets' last preseason game, a loss to the Knicks at Nassau Coliseum on October 24th.

Tonight's Nets-Knicks Season Opener Postponed

I know this is old news (as of yesterday) but as a Long Islander (an area of New York that was hit very hard by Hurricane Sandy) without power, the postponement of the planned Nets-Knicks regular season opener--official christener of the Barclays Center--is still huge news that deserved to get a post on the blog when I found a short amount of time that I could get internet access.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that with all the mass transit disruptions caused by the storm, it would be unwise to play tonight's game as scheduled. Saturday's Nets-Raptors game at the Barclays will instead serve as the first-ever regular season game at the Barclays. Also, the Knicks will kick off their regular season on Friday night at Madison Square Garden against the Heat. 

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.

Game 66 Recap: Toronto Raptors 98, Nets 67

Goodbye New Jersey Nets, and hello Brooklyn Nets. In the last game ever of the new Jersey Nets franchise, an oddly-mixed collection of NBA and D-League players took the floor for both the Raptors and Nets, both teams decimated by injury. I guess the Toronto collection of guys, led by former Net Ben Uzoh and his first career triple-double, just wanted the meaningless win more than the people (not good enough to be a team) they faced at the Air Canada Center.

Other than the official farewell to the New Jersey Nets--which kinda sounds weird now---this game didn't hold much intrigue. However, the loss did help the Nets leapfrog the Raptors in the lottery standings, giving New Jersey/Brooklyn a slightly better chance of landing in the 3-spot and enabling it to keep its pick from the Trail Blazers. Tanking at its best! Plus, I know I kept tonight's recap short but don't worry as Brooklyn Balling will have more analysis and commentary on this past Nets season and what is ahead. Also, the next time we will see a team resembling the Nets will be in October of 2012, in a preseason game possibly at the Barclays Center. See you then Johan Petro!

Game 66 Preview: Nets (22-43) at Toronto Raptors (22-43)

Goodbye, see you guys in Brooklyn

That's all folks. In the last game of another much-maligned Nets season, the team takes on the Toronto Raptors, another lottery team, in what is officially the last game ever of the New Jersey Nets. Tonight will be bittersweet for anyone that is a Nets fan because we have to wait until October of next year for basketball in Brooklyn in addition to the fact that the last time that Deron Williams is on the Nets could be tonight as he might leave the team this offseason as a free agent. However, the biggest feeling that Nets fans should be feeling is excitement because, as mentioned above, the next Nets game after tonight will not include the New Jersey Nets but instead it will be the Brooklyn Nets.


Oh yeah, the actual game. In terms of playoff chances, this game means nothing for both teams but it has incredibly coincidental lottery implications. The Nets and Raptors have exactly the same record right now so the winner's lottery chances will be worse than the other. Honestly, that's why I don't necessarily want the Nets to win because I would rather take the slight increase to our chance of getting our 1st-round pick this year than a meaningless April win. Sorry for all the people who want the Nets to get that elusive 23rd win of this condensed season. 


Background on Toronto

Toronto, like the Nets, is missing a ton of their good players due to injury so there really isn't much healthy talent to talk about on this Toronto team right now other than  DeMar DeRozan, James Johnson, and possibly Ed Davis. Another thing to note; former Net Ben Uzoh is on Toronto and might even start tonight. If you don't remember Uzoh's relatively short tenure with the Nets, then you didn't miss much. In 42 games last season, the Tulsa graduate scored just 3.8 points per game in around 10.4 minutes per. Not exactly lighting up the scoreboard, huh?

Game 21 Recap: Raptors 94, Nets 73

The fight that the Nets showed against the Cavs simply wasn't there tonight. Eric P. Mull

Well that was awful. The Toronto Raptors came into the Prudential Center and simply crushed a Nets team that looked like it never got out of bed in the morning. The Nets were simply horrendous and an energetic Toronto team without two of its better players ran circles right around the listless Nets that looked like it didn't care whether they won the game or not. There was no defense, there was no offense, there was no rebounding, and there wasn't even any energy to speak of whatsoever. The Raptors simply dominated the Nets tonight, ending a season-high two-game winning streak for New Jersey.

Even the return of Marshon Brooks from injury couldn't spark this Nets team that just couldn't put it together. The only Net who seemed to be into the game and had some intentions of getting a win was Deron Williams and every other player seemed to have been caught by the complacency bug. Deron scored his seemingly usual 24 points but only had 6 assists which is a direct result of the lack of offensive movement and determination by the four other players on the court with Deron.

Injury Updates for Tonight's Game #21: Nets vs Raptors

The injuries keep flowing for each of these teams as Leandro Barbosa is now officially out for tonight's game with a sore ankle, according to ESPNNewYork.com's Mike Mazzeo. As stated in my preview for tonight's game, Andrea Bargnani is also out for the game tonight with a calf injury. The Raptors don't have much offensive firepower with those two guys out of the line-up.

Regarding the Nets, Brook Lopez and Mehmet Okur are both out for tonight's game and Okur is expected back in a few games while Brook is expected back sometime in early February. There is also good news for the Nets in terms of Marshon Brooks' Achilles. Brooks has been cleared to play tonight but will play only "limited minutes" according to The Record's Andy Vasquez. Personally, I have no clue why Avery is risking the reaggravation of Marshon's Achilles, especially against a under-talented and under-manned Toronto team, but I guess he felt that Marshon needs to get rid of some of the rust that he has accumulated during his absence from the line-up.

Game 21 Preview: Toronto Raptors (6-14) at Nets (7-13)

Bargnani is a key cog for Toronto's offense and it will be tough for them to score without him

Tonight at the Prudential Center, the New Jersey Nets look to extend their season-long winning streak of two games with a win over their divisional foe, the Toronto Raptors. Each team is suffering from a myriad pf injuries right now as the Raptors will not have leading scorer Andrea Bargnani (calf) tonight while the Nets won't have their two best centers, Brook Lopez (foot) and Mehmet Okur (back), while stud rookie shooting guard Marshon Brooks (Achilles) is a game-time decision.


Background on Toronto
The Raptors, like the Nets, are a team made up of two main stars in point guard Jose Calderon and power forward Andrea Bargnani while the rest of the roster is a bunch of lottery draft picks, young athletes who have shown some potential but not enough consistency, and a few veterans who are just trying to stick around the NBA without providing a ton of production for their team. When you add these factors together, you get a really bad team that will be seriously affected by the injury of its best player in Bargnani. The Nets should be able to handle this team with ease.