Frustration bubbling to the surface in the Nets locker room is understandable — after five straight losses and falling to 3-10 on the season Sunday with a loss to the Pistons I’d be more worried if they weren’t a little angry. Brooklyn has one of the worst defenses in the NBA so far this season and its offense is stagnant and filled with easy-to-defend isolations.
How the team handles that frustration remains to be seen.
Kevin Garnett summed it up well, but also put a more positive spin on it than his teammates, via ESPNNewYork.com.Coach Jason Kidd has the backing of management but the first signs of any player frustration with the coach bubbled to the surface in this kind of back and forth from Kidd and Paul Pierce, via the New York Daily News.
“(The second unit) deserved to play. I should have let them play the whole game or the whole quarter,” Kidd said after wrapping up a long meeting with GM Billy King and his two assistant GMs, which they conducted in the hallways of the locker room area. “They’re playing, you know, for one another. It’s not perfect but that group that gave us an opportunity by cutting it to eight.”
“We got to understand teams aren’t going to play the same way they did in the first half as they did in the second half because teams make adjustments, especially when they are down,” Pierce said. “And we got to realize that and adjust with that.”
The Nets need a lot of help, but it starts with getting healthy — they need Deron Williams and Brook Lopez. Especially Lopez. Once they have everyone they can work on the defensive issues (Lopez really helps there, as is pointed out at Hoopscritic) and getting some movement in the offense.
The good news is with all the struggles they remain just two games out of the playoffs in an East and three games out of the lead in the weak Atlantic, this could be turned around quickly.
