[hihofink]

First off, its only been six games...six. A lot can happen over a season, but from what I have seen this team will not get far into the playoffs. Even with its firepowered offense, the defense is just not good enough. And I know collins didn't play last night, but collins can't help with wade or ai stephen jackson.



The following are facts.

Kidd is most valuable on the fast break. The nets barely recieve any fast breaks. Collins is never expected to run. And its like a 50/50 (maybe less) chance that carter decides to run. Nenad tries to run but he is still a slow big, which just leaves RJ running with kidd.

Honestly, for the guy who watched all the games...it seems like the most common fast break for the nets is just kidd running by himself and missing a very difficult layin over a defender.

On defense, RJ has shown he is no kenyon martin. Sure he is a solid defender, but he is far from great. I think his de got overhyped two/three years ago when the d was clicking so well for nj....but he was always just solid, the real defenders were k-mart, twin, and kittles.

Carter has some nice athletic plays on defense, but for the most part, he sags from his man too much, and gets blown by or lost too frequently.

Kidd is a great help defender, maybed the berst in the L, but his 1-1 defense has been par or even a bit less the past two years. He is still a great defender but he needs to have other good 1-1 defender around him for him to excel. This is not happening.

Nenad is being protected by collins, by always guarding the easier of the bigs. He does a solid job on the weaker big of the opposition, but it showed last night Nenad is not ready to step up and guard the elite.

Collins is a very very good defender. Good to box out and stay in front of his man. Sadly he leads the league in getting blocked again....but thats not what this argument is about.

Marc Jackson for all his intesity is a screen door on defnese, and McInnis has not impressed me either, but being no better than any of our guards on defense.

so to summary.

Kidd - par 1-1 defender, great help defender
carter- par/lazy 1-1 defneder, good help defender, makes athletic plays
jefferson - solid defender not great
Collins - very good defender
Krstic - can't guard elite bigs of the league

Jackson - stinks on de
McInnis - no better than any other guard on defense


----

Now everyone knew this before the season began. Coach Frank new it all too well and made schemes and zones and plays on defense to take advantage of the athletism and hide the nets weak 1-1 defense. This obviously does not work in the league. Sure its 6 games, and it might soon work, but as of yet, the nets defensive effort has yet to impress me, even utah wasn't impressive.

Can the nets win a championship with defense like it is? No way. I want to cheer as much as everybody else, and i expect the nets to hover around the 50-60% mark in wins, but come playoff times the nets defense must start working.

Any ideas?

 

[Brolic]

Great post everything you said is dead on 2 players on our roster who supposedly can play D have not been used much to say the least for whatever reason Stefanski said Wright likes playing D so maybe that's how he gets on the court better than Jacque Vaughn. If its the offense players are having a hard time learning change it up a little

 

[VCFORTHREE15]

We have an OK defense. No where near great. Do i think a change is needed? Yes. With this current team, we can expect a 50 win season, but it will be tough. I think Wilcox is what we need. No way is he an elite player, but his athleticism and his play in a contract year will motivate him maybe even to starting. Would a trade for KG work? Actually no. In the deal we would have to include carter, our main offense. Look at RJ last night. 7 pts. We cant continue to believe Rj can average over 20 like carter can. So yea we get the Elite player we have been waiting for, but we lose our offense. Thats why a Wilcox would be perfect.

 

[Vinsane]

we need to ship rj off for a big man or kristic

 

[VCFORTHREE15]

we need to ship rj off for a big man or kristic

i agree. Thats why i was upset the nets wouldnt give up RJ for magloire. He would have solidified our big men rotation. O well. RJ is BYC so he will be very hard to trade.

 

[netsgiants]

RJ and Kristic aint the problem.

 

[fabol0us16]

we just need a pf that can play d and we need antoine wright and linton johnson getting in some minutes

 

[HB]

Very good post. I always thought Vince and Kidd's 1 on 1 defense was not up to par, and well RJ wont even go there. One thing for sure is most nets fans are usually the ones quipping about how great of a defender he is. I am yet to see that. One thing is for sure though, changes are needed. The bench has definitely not lived up to expectations. One of either Collins or Cliff must be on the team for any given game, cause the other big men just cant play any defense. I just wonder why Frank wouldnt play LJIII when Padgett was stinking it up yesterday

 

[hihofink]

We have an OK defense. No where near great. Do i think a change is needed? Yes. With this current team, we can expect a 50 win season, but it will be tough. I think Wilcox is what we need. No way is he an elite player, but his athleticism and his play in a contract year will motivate him maybe even to starting. Would a trade for KG work? Actually no. In the deal we would have to include carter, our main offense. Look at RJ last night. 7 pts. We cant continue to believe Rj can average over 20 like carter can. So yea we get the Elite player we have been waiting for, but we lose our offense. Thats why a Wilcox would be perfect.

on the contrary...if the nets were able to package hypothetically, carter + krstic + picks for garnett...they should most definetly do it.

RJ is not always gonna score 20+, but he still is a pretty damn good scorer, and will still hit a 17+ ppg avg. What you are fogeting is that Garnett will also bring 20+ ppg most nights, and that the fast break will run much much smoother.

a) garnett + jefferson + kidd will run the break. And a sg could be brought in that is motivated to run.

b) With a front line of garnett, jefferson and collins. Plus a sg that wants to play defense 100% the defense would click better and more fast break opportunities would be dead on.

 

[hihofink]

RJ and Kristic aint the problem.

agreed.

 

[hihofink]

we just need a pf that can play d and we need antoine wright and linton johnson getting in some minutes

nets already have a pf that can play defense in collins. The defense from the guard positions is what concerns me.

 

[Gmister]

we just need a pf that can play d and we need antoine wright and linton johnson getting in some minutes

Exactly. Frank is to scared, seriously

 

[DareToBeYinka]

i agree. Thats why i was upset the nets wouldnt give up RJ for magloire. He would have solidified our big men rotation. O well. RJ is BYC so he will be very hard to trade.

RJ for Magloire? Because of one bad game?

 

[agilic]

I think a post like this, claiming that the Nets cannot win a championship with the current lineup, would be much more valid if the same problems are still here 30-40 games into the season. There are a lot of new players getting used to eachother, give it time. And ask yourself this. Would you have made this post if VC got that call at the end of the Heat game to give us the win, and our two best defensive bigs played against Indiani last night and we won that game too? We would be 5-1 and I don't think you'd be complaining. Now, I'm not trying to make excuses, but don't let a .500 record this early in the season fool you, is my point.

 

[ghoti]

Adding a guard that's a better 1 on 1 defender that is an offensive liability will actually hurt the team's chances of winning.

Jacque Vaughn isn't a good enough defender to warrant bumping his minutes.

The only guy on the roster who can play man defense, run the floor, and help in the half-court offense is Antoine Wright.

That's the exact reason he was drafted, he filled a lot of needs.

He's not filling any needs right now.

 

[L]

First off, its only been six games...six. A lot can happen over a season, but from what I have seen this team will not get far into the playoffs. Even with its firepowered offense, the defense is just not good enough. And I know collins didn't play last night, but collins can't help with wade or ai stephen jackson.



The following are facts.

Kidd is most valuable on the fast break. The nets barely recieve any fast breaks. Collins is never expected to run. And its like a 50/50 (maybe less) chance that carter decides to run. Nenad tries to run but he is still a slow big, which just leaves RJ running with kidd.

Honestly, for the guy who watched all the games...it seems like the most common fast break for the nets is just kidd running by himself and missing a very difficult layin over a defender.

On defense, RJ has shown he is no kenyon martin. Sure he is a solid defender, but he is far from great. I think his de got overhyped two/three years ago when the d was clicking so well for nj....but he was always just solid, the real defenders were k-mart, twin, and kittles.

Carter has some nice athletic plays on defense, but for the most part, he sags from his man too much, and gets blown by or lost too frequently.

Kidd is a great help defender, maybed the berst in the L, but his 1-1 defense has been par or even a bit less the past two years. He is still a great defender but he needs to have other good 1-1 defender around him for him to excel. This is not happening.

Nenad is being protected by collins, by always guarding the easier of the bigs. He does a solid job on the weaker big of the opposition, but it showed last night Nenad is not ready to step up and guard the elite.

Collins is a very very good defender. Good to box out and stay in front of his man. Sadly he leads the league in getting blocked again....but thats not what this argument is about.

Marc Jackson for all his intesity is a screen door on defnese, and McInnis has not impressed me either, but being no better than any of our guards on defense.

so to summary.

Kidd - par 1-1 defender, great help defender
carter- par/lazy 1-1 defneder, good help defender, makes athletic plays
jefferson - solid defender not great
Collins - very good defender
Krstic - can't guard elite bigs of the league

Jackson - stinks on de
McInnis - no better than any other guard on defense


----

Now everyone knew this before the season began. Coach Frank new it all too well and made schemes and zones and plays on defense to take advantage of the athletism and hide the nets weak 1-1 defense. This obviously does not work in the league. Sure its 6 games, and it might soon work, but as of yet, the nets defensive effort has yet to impress me, even utah wasn't impressive.

Can the nets win a championship with defense like it is? No way. I want to cheer as much as everybody else, and i expect the nets to hover around the 50-60% mark in wins, but come playoff times the nets defense must start working.

Any ideas?

come playoff time, we will need a big that can rebound.
kidd wont muscle in against the elite bigs in the league or the east, collins cannot always box them out.
anyways, i agree w/ everything in this post^^.

 

[Brolic]

I hate to say it but I dont feel confident with our lineup right now if the Nets do trade Vince we can get a power forward that can score, rebound, defend and start a sg to play D our offense is better up front while still having Collins to defend. the GM has a lot to think about on this he could pull off a blockbuster including Kidd and Vince to revamp our backourt but thats tough to pull off

 

[JCB]

we should have wright activated and make murray inactive . . . . i mean yes murray is 3 pt threat, but he isn't getting any minutes. If wright is activated and lets say we blow a team out or we are getting blown out, we can put wright in to get him at least a little experience. Who knows, maybe he excels and he can be a part of our rotation. The worst that could happen is that he does bad in minutes that don't even count and we just put him back on th inactive list.