It may well be one defeat too many for Brooklyn, beaten last night in Charlotte (110-99) for the 39th time this season. Still 11th in the East, the Nets had regained hope by beating Atlanta, currently 10th, twice last week. But this third setback in four games since considerably reduces the chances for Kevin Ollie's troops of reaching the play-in. This Sunday, the Nets are four victories behind the Hawks. Terrible when we know that they have just lost to the Grizzlies, the Pistons, and therefore the Hornets.
After the match, the coach recalled the importance of details, and in particular all those balls which ended up slipping through their fingers and costing them a setback on arrival which was very painful.
“My eyes don’t lie. Of all these balls where we were 50-50, I don't remember that we managed to snatch a single one. I could be wrong and I would watch the match again, but at all the times when we could have snatched one of those balls lying around, we didn't recover a single one.”, he lamented.
Seven trips out of the next nine matches
Despite the return of Cam Thomas, who exploded to 7/8 shooting to plant 17 of his 31 points in the first 8 minutes of the match, Brooklyn did not manage to go the distance, conceding too many weak times, as on the 15-4 conceded just before the break which slowly brought the Nets closer to the precipice. Once again, the aggressiveness in defense was lacking.
“It’s just a matter of effort”regretted the rear, although not the most motivated defender of the group. “Sometimes you lack defensive coverage, but at some point you have to know how to take up the challenge and defend your guy one-on-one. It's hard to give up entire corridors for penetrations. It puts a lot of pressure on our defense because opponents can come out to get open 3-point shots. And everyone can hit a wide-open catch-and-shoot 3-pointer in this league. So we have to have this determination to keep our opponent directly in front of us.”
Brooklyn is still stuck at 25 wins, and the gap is widening with Atlanta (29 wins) which hosts New Orleans today. But above all, the Nets will see the level of the opposition go up a notch. Over their next seven matches, they must face six teams with a winning record greater than 50%, including three trips to Cleveland, Orlando and Indiana to begin with, before receiving the Spurs, then three other “big ones”: New Orleans at home , Milwaukee and New York away.
“It’s not funny at all. It goes wrong and we lose again and again, it's not fun at all. We have to correct the situation in the effort and all that. It's just a matter of details.” for his part declared Mikal Bridges, aware that the task has become considerably complicated following the last two matches.
