Nets cut down
1st-place Raptors best Hollins’ crew
TORONTO — When the Nets and Raptors met in the first round of the playoffs last season, in what turned out to be one of the most entertaining series of the entire tournament, it seemed like the beginning of a fun rivalry within the Atlantic Division.
But in Wednesday night’s meeting between the two teams at Air Canada Centre it was clear just how much work the Nets have to do in order to catch back up.
The Raptors came away with a 10589 victory, improved to 206 and remained in first place in the Eastern Conference, while the Nets (1014) remain mired in eighth and are just a halfgame ahead of the ninthplace Celtics.
“I know we’re a pretty good ball club, and we show it in spurts, whether it’s a quarter, two, three, but we’re just not putting together four great quarters,” Joe Johnson said. “It’s hurting us, but we have to try to figure it out.”
Mason Plumlee was the lone bright spot for the Nets, finishing with 23 points and eight rebounds, though he went just 5for11 from the freethrow line.
The Nets jumped out to an 11point lead in the first quarter and led by eight at the end of it, but it seemed inevitable the Raptors would eventually win. Part of that came from the fact the Nets were playing without Kevin Garnett (rest), Brook Lopez (back) and Sergey Karasev (sore left oblique) while playing the second half of a backtoback. But the Raptors also have become a better team over the past several months.
They didn’t get there by changing much of their roster or their coaching staff; they got there by keeping virtually their entire team together.
“They’re definitely headed in the right direction,” Deron Williams said. “You talk about consistency, they’ve had the same players, the same group of guys. Last year was a learning experience for them, and now they’re taking it to the next level.”
By contrast, the Nets have had four coaches in the past twoplus seasons, and have seen their roster constantly churn during that span. That lack of cohesion is partly to blame for yet another slow start to the season, but Wednesday’s game fell into a familiar pattern.
As they often have, the Nets got off to a brilliant start, shooting 59 percent as a team and committing just one turnover to take a 3022 lead heading into the second quarter. But, as they have so many other times this season, they faded as the game moved along. Their shooting went cold (they shot 37.2 percent overall and 26.3 percent from 3point range over the final three quarters) and they had 12 secondhalf turnovers.
“We just started throwing the ball to them instead of us, or throwing the ball out of bounds,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said. “I can’t speak for why it happened.
“Some of it could have been because of their defense, but most of it was just bad decision making.”
The Nets falling back to earth, along with excellent games from Kyle Lowry (20 points, 12 assists) and Jonas Valanciunas (16 points, 10 rebounds) allowed Toronto to eventually pull away in the second half. A 198 run to open the fourth quarter gave Toronto a 9581 lead with a little more than four minutes left.
They even got a chance to make fun of the man who was most responsible for sending Toronto home early last year, Joe Johnson, by chanting “Brooklyn Sucks!” as Johnson missed all three free throws after being fouled attempting a 3pointer late in the fourth quarter.