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Nets @ Cavaliers: Tuesday, December 4th By Matt McQueeny, NJNets.com It's Final: Nets Beat LeBron-less Cavs in Cleveland 100-79 Richard Jefferson continued his offensive assault on the game. He finished with a season-high 36 points in 37 minutes; Vince Carter scored 19; Jason Kidd had 10 rebounds, seven points, and six assists; Malik Allen scored 10 and boarded nine; Sean Williams had eight rebounds; Jamaal Magloire finished with seven points and seven rebounds. Shannon Brown led three Cavs in double-figure scoring, with 20. Third Quarter Capsule Richard Jefferson scored 13 in the quarter and the Nets busted the game open, leading by as much as 17. They shot out of the half on a 9-0 run to push out to a 56-43 lead with 10:02 in the third. The Nets held the shorthanded Cavs to 28.6% shooting. Second Quarter Capsule The Nets fell down as much as seven but used a 13-5 spurt to take a 47-43 lead into halftime. The Nets gave Cleveland a little of their own medicine, with an 8-4 advantage in offensive rebounds. Sean Williams was a big factor there, as four of his seven first half rebounds were offensive. Also, Jamaal Magloire got into his first game action since the Utah game on November 19th. He had a nice dunk and grabbed three rebounds. New Jersey held the Cavs to 36.8% shooting in the second and had a 7-2 advantage in fast-break points in contrast to a 6-0 first quarter deficit in transition points. First Quarter Capsule The Cavaliers closed the first quarter on a 6-0 run to take a 22-19 when the horn sounded. Shannon Brown scored 10 on 4-of-5 from the field, and 2-of-2 from three. Richard Jefferson scored eight for New Jersey; Jason Collins had five points, three rebounds, and two assists. Report: LeBron James Out Tonight Brian Windhorst of the Akron Beacon Journal is reporting that LeBron James will not play tonight against the Nets. Kidd, LeBron: Triple-Trouble Tonight’s match up between the Cavaliers and Nets could feature a tête-à-tête between two of the game’s best, especially as it relates to the triple-double. As someone who follows the Nets, this statistic may seem like a somewhat commonplace happening, but it truly is not. Jason Kidd, 34, and LeBron James, 24 this month, each have four triple-doubles on the young season; Kidd has 91 in his career, LeBron has 14. What makes James’ triple-doubles most impressive is the scoring totals. He is currently leading the league in scoring, at 30.7 points a game. James did not dress the last two games – both Cavalier losses – after spraining his left index finger against the Pistons – also a loss. He is listed as day-to-day. “The thing that’s so special about LeBron is that he’s so young,” said Coach Lawrence Frank at shoot around today. “He’s going to go down as one of the great players if he continues on this track and the thing that he’s able to do is he carries the load. You look at it. He doesn’t play, look what happens. The thing that’s interesting is that prior to this year they did have a pretty good record without him but he’s just such a dominant player and such a great player with the size and strength. He’s special and the older he gets, the more mature and the more understanding of the game and the different things about the game he will gain. You see it and you see his game improving.” Continue Frank, on James, “Think about what those assists equal, what the points equal, the rebounds – the extra possessions you take away – how much you’re impacting the game is unbelievable. You can fill up a stat sheet that way and the bottom line is do you help your team win or not. That’s it.” “He’s probably playing as good as anybody,” said Kidd, who got to better know James this summer when they were teammates at the FIBA Americas Tournament. “He’s a guy who can fill up the stat sheets and get you wins and that’s the most important thing.” Kidd sees James as the leading candidate in today’s NBA to average a triple-double for a season, as Oscar Robertson did in the 1961-62 season at the age of 23 (30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, 11.4 assists). “He understands the game, he’s unselfish; the big thing is he has the opportunity to take the game over scoring, but also he can find the open guy. 6-8, can jump out of the gym, so as long as he presents himself, he can easily get eight rebounds. Maybe there might be two hard ones but he can out jump anyone. I think that’s why he would be the candidate. He’s 6-8, 260-something.” He’s playing at an extremely high level,” said Richard Jefferson, who had his first career triple-double in 2002-03 with 30 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds. “You look at his triple-doubles when he has 30-plus points, 15 rebounds, 15 assists, those kinds of things. He’s a talented, talented player, but it is tough. His strength and energy is something that goes unnoticed where he doesn’t really get fatigued too often. He can play 48 minutes and be the same way in the fourth quarter as he is in the first.” “It’s hard,” said Kidd. “It’s very hard. It takes a lot out of you. To fill the stat sheet up on a consistent basis as he has – or if you look at somebody who is averaging a triple double – it’s not easy and also to win on top of that. All those ingredients take a lot out of you mentally and physically.” From Detroit to Cleveland The Nets took the 22-minute flight from Detroit to Cleveland knowing exactly what went wrong in their 118-95 loss to the Pistons on Sunday night. In the first half, and mostly in the second quarter, it was second chance points: the Pistons had a 15-4 advantage in that category at halftime. In the third quarter, it was the inability to get stops on the defensive end as the Pistons scored 33 points on 73% from the field. In a game the Nets led 27-22 at the 1:49 mark of the first quarter, Detroit held a 20-point lead at the end of the third. “They scored over 100 and something points, so there was no defense tonight,” said Jason Kidd, who had 16 assists. “We have to look at that and find a way to get stops and I think we got great looks on the other end. It’s just a matter of getting stops.” Third-year Piston Jason Maxiell came off the bench midway through the first quarter and helped turn the tide Detroit’s way. He finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds, but had 12 of those points and nine of those rebounds – including six on the offensive end – in the first half. “He changed the game,” said Lawrence Frank. “You look at the extra possessions he got them towards the end of the first and the second quarter. Six offensive rebounds, his ability to finish, he finished with 18 points. I think he was the game-changer; I think their second unit, and specifically him, the energy they brought changed the whole tempo of the game. Both teams were trading buckets, there was good offensive flow, but he was the game changer.” The Nets now play in Cleveland on Tuesday night against a Cavaliers team who knocked them out of the playoffs in last season’s Eastern Conference Semi-finals. Cleveland was a team who gave the Nets trouble – as they did a lot of the league – on the boards last season. “They have a different team, we have a different team,” said Kidd on Cleveland. “They have one key ingredient who is getting better, in LeBron (James). For us, we just have to go out there and try to win on the road.” New Jersey, now back below .500 (8-9), faces the Knicks on Wednesday on the second half of the back-to-back starting with the Cavs. “This is a long process,” said Frank. “You can’t wait for anything; there has to be a sense of urgency. There has to be every time that we take the floor, whether it’s for shoot around, practice, games. There has to be a sense of urgency to want to do better. Everyone, from myself, you have to look from within to find out what you can do more to help the team. I think that’s the only way you get yourself out of a funk or in a bad way. You go back and this is how quickly things change. Utah, things couldn’t have looked worse after that game; we come back and win three in a row. Lakers game, the type of feeling we had and then just as quick as that, we lose to Memphis. We were in a malaise to start the game against Philly but that’s how this league is. For virtually every team things go from good to bad, bad to good. It’s the teams that can regardless of what’s going on when you step on the court, can stay together and collectively understand what their recipe is for winning and being committed to that through good and bad.” |
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