NETS REFUSE TO WILT
Beat Heat in double overtime for fifth straight win:
Kevin Garnett was “Big Ticket.” Paul Pierce was “Truth.” Andray Blatche was “Dray.” Andrei Kirilenko was, well, if you can’t read the Cyrillic alphabet, you just didn’t know what was on the back of his Brooklyn Nets uniform jersey on Friday night.
It might have read “Prokhorov Rules!” for all we know.
The Nets and Heat wore their nicknames on their jerseys, an NBA first and marking a new low for professional sports. The game should have been televised on Home Shopping Network, where they could have also held a fire sale on all those ugly Christmas pajamas they made the players run around in. With this league, the money grab never ends.
As far as merchandising goes, this night will be judged a success if the gimmicky jerseys fly off the racks. As far as the Nets are concerned, it was a terrific night and a long one, ending with a 104-95 double-overtime win.
It wou ld have been criminal if the Nets couldn’t beat Miami when LeBron James wasn’t on the court at all for the second overtime and when Dwyane Wade didn’t play a second because of a sore right knee.
“They weren’t fully loaded, with one of their best players out,” Jason Kidd noted.
But he wasn’t about to give this game back, no sir. The Nets are now 15-21 and need every victory they can get. Now they’ve got a fivegame winning streak, even if No. 5 came against a team missing three starters.
No Wade. No Shane Battier. No Mario Chalmers. Or, in keeping with the nickname theme, no D-Wade, no Battle, no Rio.
“We’re a no-excuse team,” James said. “Even though we’ve got a lot of depth, it’s hard to make up when three starters are out.”
But the Nets could counter by saying that D-Will (Deron Williams) and Brooklyn (Brook Lopez) were also missing from this final appearance by the Heat in Brooklyn, at least for the regular season. Who knows when Williams will be back, since he’s been waylaid once again by his troublesome ankle. Lopez, the only low-post option Kidd has, is done for the season, felled again by a recurring foot problem.
The bad thing for the NBA is, decimated rosters are getting to be the norm. Every day, one team or another is losing another key player to a major injury. In the last day or so, Phoenix lost its best player, Eric Bledsoe, until late February with a major knee injury. New Orleans point guard Jrue Holiday was lost indefinitely with a serious ankle injury.
“You cringe when you see a player get hurt,” said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra. “It’s horrible. You feel bad for them and their teams. Ultimately, there’s an incredible unpredictability. All you can do is knock on wood and cross your fingers.”
In his case, he prays, very hard, that nothing bad ever happens to James. Because that would be the end of Miami’s three-peat bid.
On Friday, something bad happened to James, something unusual, when he fouled out for only the sixth time as a professional basketball player.
Driving the lane and looking for a chance to tie the game with 36 seconds left in the first overtime, he sent Shaun Livingston hard to the court and was whistled for No. 6.
conceded “it could have been a charge, for sure.” On his earlier offensive fouls, he thought Kirilenko had flopped, but that’s the way the whistles went.
Getting James off the floor, for good, was exactly what the Nets needed after he went for 36 points.
“Shaun’s IQ is extremely high,” Kidd said. “We’ve asked him to guard everybody. He was in the right place at the right time. It was a big defensive stop.’’
The biggest stop of the night. Over in Miami’s locker room, someone asked James what it felt like having to watch the second overtime, an 11-2 romp for the Nets, from the end of the bench.
“It wa s g reat ,” he s a id, sarcastically.
Then he was told it was only his sixth foul-out.
“So you should know the answer,” he said.
No, he wasn’t happy to be leaving New York 0-2. He had a chance to win the game in regulation, but missed one of two foul shots with 40 seconds left. But otherwise, logging 49 minutes and 22 seconds a night after playing more than 41 minutes against the Knicks, he was his usual, unstoppable self.
Most of the night, he was the old Clevela nd Ja me s, reduced to doing most of the heavy lifting. That should have been on his jersey. Instead, he wore “King James,” in case you want to buy one.