Game 59 Preview: Philadelphia 76ers (29-27) at Nets (21-37)

Lou Williams always seems to kill the Nets when these two teams play. Wait, who doesn't?

UPDATE: Gerald Wallace is out tonight with his left hamstring strain. Gerald Green is also a game-time decision with ora surgery, according to Nets beat reporters.


The Nets look to spoil the playoff run of the Philadelphia 76ers as they try to win their fourth straight game at the Prudential Center in Newark. These teams play three times total in the next two weeks, games that are crucial for the 76ers who are tied with the Knicks for 7th in the East and are only one and a half games up on the 8th-place Milwaukee Bucks. The Nets are playing well of late and the 76ers not so much, so this game could be interesting. Don't just count the Nets out because of their record; they have been playing great basketball of late and would like nothing more than to ruin a divisional rival's chances of making the playoffs.

Background on Philadelphia

Without a main star player to focus on, the 76ers can be considered a scoring-by-committee team that doesn't live or die with the efforts of one player but instead with the efforts of the team collectively. They also have a good bench, highlighted by their leading scorer, Louis Williams, and third-leading scorer, Thaddeus Young. Since the Nets are defensively-challenged, they could run into trouble in having to defend the roughly 10 76ers players who consistently score and get significant playing time for Philly.

Nets Sign Armon Johnson to 10-Day Contract

To provide some depth at point guard after Jordan Farmar's season-ending groin injury, the Nets announced that they have signed former Trail Blazer point guard Armon Johnson to a 10-day contract. Johnson spent some with Portland last season and early this season after being called up from the Idaho Stampede of the D-League. In 38 games with the Trail Blazers last year, Johnson, a 23-year old who went to Nevada, scored 2.9 points per game on 40 percent shooting.

Making the Case for Brooklyn as a Potential Landing Spot for Deron Williams

This Nets team has been a major part of Melodrama (Carmelo Anthony), Linsanity (Jeremy Lin), Dwightmare (Dwight Howard) and now this. If D-Will doesn't come to Brooklyn, we can call the Deronisaster but it he does re-sign with the Nets, it will be pure Headeron (mix of heaven and Deron, not my best work). 

Basically all the NBA writers that cover the teams involved in the complex Deron Williams and Dwight Howard free agency saga sort-of-thing have started to pencil in D-Will as being a Maverick next season. This is coming on the heels of Deron announcing that he will indeed opt of his current contract with the Nets after the season, making him a free agent on July 1st. Guys like Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com (who obviously is a big Mavs fan) are saying that this news makes the potential scenario that D-Will will head to his hometown team in free agency a "likely" occurence.

This notion is ridiculous and is nothing more than a biased view from a writer who would certainly benefit from covering a team with one of the best point guards in the league on it. The only thing that Deron has said which would seem to support him leaving the Nets and going down to Dallas as a free agent is that Deron is from a Dallas suburb and said that he likes playing at the American Airlines Center. Putting all of these half-truths and pure speculations aside, let's take a look at why Brooklyn is the place that Deron should be when next NBA season comes around.

Game 58 Recap: Nets 122, Cavaliers 117 (OT)

This is Lester Hudson. You probably didn't know that before last night's game but you should now.

I was at this game and boy was it interesting/exciting. Cleveland didn't have Kyrie Irving due to injury but that didn't matter as they got extremely productive performances from some unassuming forces as they fought back to tie up the game with a 38-point 4th quarter. As usual, the game started off with the Nets being sluggish as Cleveland jumped out to a quick 22-13 lead. The Nets stormed back to take an 8-point halftime lead by winning the 2nd quarter 30-18.

Then, after a particularly even 3rd quarter, the Cavs went crazy in the 4th by hitting 12 of their 21 shots, especially six of seven from behind the arc. 10-day contract signee Lester Hudson put his mark on the game in this quarter by scoring 18 of his 26 points, highlighted by a three with 0.3 seconds remaining that sent this game to overtime. Honestly, I had no idea who Lester Hudson was as a player prior to the game but now I know that he can shoot from really deep and with players in his face. Yet another D-Leaguer who burned the Nets.

Game 57 Preview: Washington Wizards (12-43) at Nets (19-37)

John Wall went 1st overall the season after the Nets had the worst record in the NBA, we can dream

The Nets return home to New Jersey after a relatively solid 2-2 West Coast road trip. They took care of the bad Warriors and Kings before losing to the Lakers and Blazers. As is usual with the Nets, injuries ensued and D-Will missed a few of the contests, leaving New Jersey with Sundiata Gaines running the team most of the game in Portland. No wonder they got killed. 

Background on Washington

The Wizards stink and hold the 2nd-worst record in the whole league. Yep, good characteristics to beat the Nets who for some reason, play terrible basketball against all the bottom-dwellers of the NBA, except for the Bobcats of course. The last time these teams faced each other, March 21st in Newark, the Nets got crushed by 19 points to a Washington team that was energized by the debut of Nene, who was acquired from Denver at the trade deadline in exchange for much-maligned center JaVale McGee. Also to be noted, the Wizards are 1-9 since that game. That hasn't been helped by the absence of Nene who has missed the last four games with a foot injury. He's a game-time decision for tonight's game.

Jordan Farmar Done for Season

According to Mike Mazzeo of ESPNNewYork.com, the Nets have announced that Jordan Farmar will in fact miss the rest of the season with his groin injury. This has been hinted at by Farmar for awhile and now it's official. Looks like we will be subjected to Sundiata Gaines for the rest of the season as out sole back-up point guard. Uh oh.

Game 54 Recap: Nets 111, Kings 99

The streak shall live! After yet another poor first quarter which left the Nets down by nine points at the 3:50 mark, they played incredibly inspiring ball the rest of the way and basically blew out the Kings, who did put up a fight late in the fourth quarter. The Nets started tonight's game with the exact same lack-of-effort and intensity as they did against Golden State but like Friday's game, they pushed through those doldrums and ended up with a very convincing win.

In very non-Nets fashion, the kick-starter for their rally which culminated in the win was actually defense. Sacramento scored a ton of points, 35, in the first quarter but were held to nearly that amount, 41, over the next two quarters. The Nets turned up the defensive pressure on the Kings and that ended up shooting New Jersey onto an offensive explosion that turned this game from a close barn-burner into a 19-point blow-out.

Tonight, the main offensive cog for the Nets was Anthony Morrow who definitively broke out of his recent slump with a 24-point game on the power of six 3-pointers. Gerald Wallace continued to live up to his nickname of "Crash" by flying around the court, hitting jump-shots, making contested lay-ups, grabbing rebounds over Kings players, making key steals, and even the occasional block. If it wasn't clear before, Wallace is a serious player and is a lot more underrated that I thought he was.