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 Recap: Timberwolves 107, Nets 96

It took a crazy fourth quarter collapse at the Barclays Center on Monday night to drop the Nets' record to 1-1 on the young season and to send a jubilant Minnesota team home with a shocking victory. We all knew the Nets wouldn't go 82-0 but regardless, the first loss of any new season is crushing. According to the logic, last night's loss was simply devastating. 

Losing a game which you led by a score of 71-49 in the third quarter--at any time in the season--is awful and terrible and bad and horrific and bad. As my poor grammar and sentence structure show, the Nets' meltdown at the hands of the T-Wolves was inexplicable and stunning to those in attendance in Brooklyn, like myself. Cutting the Nets lead to 86-75 after the third, Minnesota went off in the final quarter, outscoring the home team by a tally of 32-10 and sending the crowd and Nets home in a daze, wondering: "What the f*** just happened?"

Well, simply put, what happened to let the T-Wolves back into the game was a mix of offensive isolations and stagnations and non-existent interior defense by the Nets and incredible offensive execution by Minnesota.

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.

Gerald Wallace Out for Tonight's Game; Keith Bogans Will Start For Him

According the Nets' PR Department's official Twitter account (@Nets_PR), the ankle injury that Gerald Wallace suffered attempting to block a shot in Saturday's season-opening win over Toronto will cause him to miss tonight's game against the Timberwolves. Keith Bogans will start at the small forward position in Gerald's stead.

Game 24 Recap: Timberwolves 108, Nets 105

Morrow couldn't miss from beyond the arc, too bad he wasted that performance in a loss

Despite a career-high scoring output by Anthony Morrow, the Nets lost a tight game to the Timberwolves last night at the Prudential Center. Coming off an ankle injury that forced him to miss Wednesday's win over the Pistons, Morrow was simply unstoppable against Minnesota as he hit a career-high eight 3-pointers, hit 13-20 shots from the field, and was a perfect 8-8 from the free throw line en route to a 42-point effort, the most for his career. Morrow didn't much help as the rest of the Nets didn't shot well at all from the field; Deron Williams managed 12 points and 14 assists on 5-18 shooting while Kris Humphries scored 16 on 5-14 from the field.

On the other hand, the Timberwolves got scoring from multiple sources as five of their players were in double-figures in the points category, led by Nikola Pekovic's career-high 27 points and 11 rebounds. The still-undermanned Nets had no answer for 6'11" Montenegrin who used his big size to his advantage down in the paint as he made 11 of his 14 field goals. Kevin Love also netted a 20-10 double-double while Spaniard point guard Ricky Rubio notched his own double-double with 10 points and 10 assists while adding six steals.

The Nets showed a lot of fight in this game as they were down by double-digits in both the 1st and 2nd-halves; by 14 in the 2nd-quarter and by 11 in the 3rd-quarter. In both those circumstances, the Nets were able to bounce back and regain the lead by the end of the 1st-half and with 9:36 left in the 4th on a Morrow 3-pointer set-up by an absolutely dirty between-the-legs pass from D-Will. For the rest of the game after the 9:36 mark, the lead changed a few times and the margin stayed at five points or less.

The Nets found themselves down by 3 with 1:23 remaining after a Luke Ridnour 3-pointer when Deron committed one of his six turnovers for the game. After a few Ridnour free throws, Morrow hit his 8th and final 3-pointer on a 4-point play to cut the Minnesota lead to 104-103. Some free throws and shots were exchanged and the Nets were down 108-105 with 10 seconds left when D-Will made his worst play of the game, and posibly of the season, as he got the ball stolen from him while trying to pass to Morrow for the game-tying shot. Ricky Rubio ran the clock out and the Nets had suffered another brutal home loss.

Game 24 Preview: Minnesota Timberwolves (10-12) at Nets (8-15)

Many thought that Rubio's style of play wouldn't translate well to the NBA; boy were they wrong

The Nets take on the young Minnesota Timberwolves tonight at the Prudential Center as the Nets look to improve their momentum from Wednesday's win over the Detroit Pistons. The Nets will probably have 10 available players for the game as Anthony Morrow (ankle) and Johan Petro (stomach virus) are going to play tonight while Marshon Brooks (foot), DeShawn Stevenson (back), and Brook Lopez (foot) are all still out with injuries.

Background on Minnesota
The T-Wolves, led by recently-extended center Kevin Love and Spanish sensation Ricky Rubio, have been making waves across the NBA with their surprisingly start to this season. Minnesota, one of the NBA's worst teams last season, is only two games under .500 and is just a few games out of the 8th-playoff spot in the tough Western Conference. Franchise center Kevin Love is averaging 25 points and 14 rebounds per game so far in the 2011-12 season and has achieved a double-double in 20 of the 22 he has played so far. The youthful talent of the T-Wolves doesn't end after Love and Rubio however as Minnesota boasts a solid supporting cast of high draft picks in Derrick Williams and Wesley Johnson, in addition to free-agent pickups (J.J. Barea), role players trying to find their way (Anthony Tolliver, Anthony Randolph, Martell Webster), and even trade acquisitions (Michael Beasley and Brad Miller) among others.