Brooklyn Boro

Nets ‘sheep’-ish in opening night loss

Minus Lopez, Brooklyn Beaten Badly in Beantown, 121-105

October 30, 2014 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Lionel Hollins’ Nets coaching debut in Boston was hard to watch Wednesday night as Brooklyn was outhustled and outmuscled by the Celtics. Photos courtesy of the Associated Press
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According to Lionel Hollins, the Brooklyn Nets have not yet begun to fight.

That was more of a sad admission, rather than a bold declaration by the first-year Brooklyn head coach.

“I was trying to fight for them, but they have to fight for themselves,” Hollins insisted after watching his Nets’ coaching debut go up in smoke with a deeply disappointing 121-105 loss in Boston on Wednesday night before an Opening Night crowd of 15,509 at TD Garden.

Brooklyn’s defense was virtually non-existent, surrendering an unfathomable 62 points in the paint, as starting center Brook Lopez, as expected, sat out with a foot sprain suffered during the preseason. 

The Nets failed to protect the ball as well as their own basket, yielding 25 turnovers to give the Celtics quick and easy paths to the hoop. 

It was the most points the Nets have ever surrendered in a season opener, and the performance left Hollins to wonder where the fight, grit and determination his team has exhibited during practice and the preseason had gone. 

“It was like an open gate,” Hollins lamented when asked about his team’s defensive failings. “All the sheep got out of the gate. We made so many mistakes in the pick-and-roll.” 

Perhaps most disheartening was Brooklyn’s apparent lack of effort on the defensive end. 

With Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo penetrating into the paint at will, the Nets looked helpless as Boston staged an in-game lay-up line en route to a 67-41 halftime lead.

“It was layup after layup,” noted Hollins, who came to Brooklyn boasting a hard-nosed defensive style that helped his former team, the Memphis Grizzlies, reach the Western Conference Finals in 2012-13. 

“The game of basketball is about efforts. Not effort, but efforts,” Hollins emphasized. “It’s not easily correctable. It takes a lot of effort.” 

Hollins even took a technical foul in the second quarter, hoping to give the Nets a spark, but there was very little fight in a team that is expected to get tougher under his guidance rather than softer, which is how they looked Wednesday. 

Second-year center Mason Plumlee tried in vain to fill in for Lopez, managing four points and four rebounds while picking up four fouls in only 11 minutes of playing time. 

“We never really matched their energy,” Plumlee admitted. 

But Hollins refused to use his former All-Star center’s absence as an excuse for the debacle in Beantown. 

“It’s not about Brook,” Hollins said. “It’s about the guys that played. [Lopez] wouldn’t have changed what I saw out there tonight.” 

What he saw was a game-breaking 15-1 run by Boston moments after he’d drawn the strategic technical. 

Deron Williams, playing on two healthy ankles for the first time during his Brooklyn tenure, scored 19 points and passed out eight assists for the Nets, while Mirza Teletovic added 20 points off the bench on 8-of-11 shooting. 

“We played like crap,” Williams stated matter-of-factly. 

Joe Johnson added 19 points as Brooklyn posted a respectable 49 percent shooting percentage, but allowed Boston to hit at 56 percent from the field, including 61 percent in the first half.

The Nets’ All-Star shooting guard wasn’t shy about pointing to Lopez’s absence as a reason for his team’s poor effort on Opening Night.

“He was definitely missed,” said Johnson, who is hoping to have Lopez back in the starting lineup Saturday night, when the Nets head to Detroit for their second game of the season before next Monday night’s home opener against Oklahoma City. “[We missed him] defensively, rebounding, shot blocking, altering shots.”

Rondo played a tremendous all-around game, finishing with 13 points, seven rebounds and 12 assists. Second-year center Kelly Olynyk took advantage of the hole left by Lopez, as well as Plumlee’s ineptitude, pouring in 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting.

It was certainly an opener the Nets would like to forget, which they can begin doing in Motown on Saturday night.

But another effort, or lack thereof, like this one against Detroit, especially with Lopez back in the lineup, will leave the Nets wondering when, or if, they’ll ever get tough enough for Hollins’ liking. 

“[We need] consistent effort,” he noted. “In this game, the intensity being displayed by both teams is unbelievable. We need to get there.”

Get there, or go nowhere this season.

 

Nothing But Net: F Kevin Garnett, traded here from Boston the summer before last, scored 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting and grabbed six rebounds in 23 minutes against his former team. “We’ve got some work to do,” Garnett admitted following the defeat. “I think that is apparent.” … Rookie F Bojan Bogdanovic, taking Paul Pierce’s former starting spot at small forward, scored seven points in his NBA debut, but didn’t grab a single rebound. He also had two assists and two turnovers.

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