Lack of Identity: Brooklyn Nets hold players-only meeting last night

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The Brooklyn Nets lost another game last night to the Portland Trailblazers 108-98 after scoring a solid 63 points in the first half only to see them score 35 points in the second half on 22 percent shooting.

Injuries are certainly hindering this team coming together and the starting lineup of  Williams-Johnson-Pierce-Garnett-Lopez have logged a total of 78 minutes together on the court to date.

Add to the fact that they have a rookie head coach in Jason Kidd and you can understand why they are struggling so bad.

Avery Johnson on ESPN FirstTake  said it best today: ” The Nets just don’t have an identity right now. They are not good offensively or defensively right now.”

 

On Kidd’s coaching:  “You have to give him time to learn on the job training. Eight games is not enough. Give the Nets time”

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[quote_box]Joe Johnson

“It was just us amongst ourselves talking,” Johnson said.

“Yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing,” Johnson said. “We were riding pretty high and clicking offensively. We weren’t getting a lot of stops, but we had enough to where we had a double-figure lead, and we just blew it all away.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re learning on the fly. We’re learning game after game. We’re trying to figure it out.”

“It seems like at one point in time we have pretty good chemistry,” Johnson said. “Then we just look like we don’t know what we’re out there doing. We get a little frustrated when the defensive schemes stop working, guys stop making shots and then the scheme is kind of out of the window.

“We’ve just got to stick to the game plan and see what we can do to get out of this.”[/quote_box]

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[quote_box] Alan Anderson

“It’s not us saying something as much as it’s body language,” Anderson said. “It’s more like, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I missed that shot. Damn.’ Then, when you get back, it’s like, ‘Aw, they scored. Damn, I’ve got to make that shot.’

“It just [should be], ‘Damn, I missed the shot. Let’s get the stop, and let’s get that shot again.’ It’s something minor, that especially with our team we should be … we’re just right there. We’ve got to just do it. Just do it.”

“Once shots stop falling, we kind of hang our head, and when shots are going in, we’re not getting stops,” Anderson said

“We’ve just got to finish games,” Anderson said. “We’re doing everything it takes to win, but we’re just not doing it consistently through the whole game. At the end of the game we got like 10 stops, but we couldn’t score nothing though. It’s just getting into that.

“We’re getting down on ourselves when we’re missing shots. We should get mad and get a stop and try it again.”[/quote_box]

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[quote_box]Jason Terry

“The realism is that you’re 3-7,” Terry said. “It’s not the end of the world. But again, we just have to find the consistency with our game and continue to grow and continue to build this chemistry.

When they put this thing together they didn’t say it would happen right away. We all would love it too, but it hasn’t and everything has come very difficult, whether its shots or getting stops; everything has been a grind. It’s been a tough month for us.”

“Patience is what it is. There is no timetable [for us to turn it around]. We don’t know. We’d like it to happen sooner than later, but No. 1, you have to get healthy.

You’re missing your key big man and your star point guard, shit, I don’t know how much success you’re going to have without that. But again, it’s what we’re faced with.

We’d rather have it happen now than later, obviously, so we’re just gonna keep grinding and get through it.”[/quote_box]

Read more: NYPOST

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