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Recap: Nets 103, Pelicans 105

Before we get to the game, let’s all the Brooklyn Nets fans to close their eyes and give thanks…

To the month of January being over.

February could be worse, and it might be. But the All-Star break is coming up and it is the shortest month in the calendar.

The Brooklyn Nets have mercifully ended the month of January, in which they lost Jarrett Jack for the year with an ACL injury (What’s worse is that it was the Boston Celtics game, the team who gets the Nets’ first-round pick. Hey, Boston! Lighten up, will ya!), fired Lionel Hollins and reassigned Billy King on a Sunday morning, lost to Deron Williams’s new team with him actually on the floor, and finally losing a heartbreaker to the New Orleans Pelicans, 105-103.

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Is Brook Lopez Really An All-Star?

Bojan Bogdanovic was invited to the All-Star festivities, being selected to the Rising Star Challenge in Toronto. Brook Lopez wasn’t even mentioned as an All-Star snub. Bojan Bogdanovic has struggled mightily at times this season. Brook Lopez is the Brooklyn Nets’ best player and the face on the franchise. Bojan Bogdanovic has dropped in every statistical category this season. Brook Lopez not only is the Nets’ leading scorer, but he leads ALL of the Eastern Conference centers in scoring.

Despite all of these things, the question is: why is Bojan Bogdanovic playing in Toronto and not Brook Lopez?

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Recap: Nets 79, Mavericks 91 - D-Will Appears Slow In Return, Still Takes Down Brooklyn

It was former Nets star point guard Deron William’s first game against his old team since leaving Brooklyn. However it was a classic Dallas Mavericks team basketball performance that solidified their 91-79 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.

The former All-Star was aggressive to start, taking a team-high 10 shots before halftime. Despite being aggressive, Williams struggled with his shot on the night, connecting on just 21 percent of his shots from the field to garner a total of only eight points in his return.

Though forward Chandler Parsons led his team with 19 points, coach Rick Carlisle made sure to spread the love on offense. Outside of Dirk Nowitzki, who has undoubtfully earned the privilege to take as many one-on-one looks as he wants, each Dallas starter had three or more assists.

Dallas center Zaza Pachulia played well with 16 points, 12 rebounds, and three assists on the night in one of his best games of the season. Surprisingly he was approximately 14,000 votes short of being voted into this years All-Star game in Toronto. Despite the popular belief that he was not anywhere close to worthy, the big man has played his way into averaging a double-double.

Pachulia did struggle to contain the Nets’ Brook Lopez, who led all scorers with 28 points to go with 12 rebounds. Despite seeing more double teams this year with the lack of other offensive weapons around him he has really been hitting his stride lately. The seven footer also just dropped 31 points in Sunday’s victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Lopez didn’t get much help in this one with his teammates struggling to move the ball without Jarrett Jack in the lineup. It wasn’t until late in the third quarter that a fifth player hit a shot for Brooklyn.

Just when we thought Bojan Bogdanovic was beginning to get things going after two big games and establish himself as the team’s sixth man, he reverted to the Bogdanovic fans had been accustomed to seeing all season. He missed all four of his shots - many of them open threes from the corner - and collected one rebound in 19 minutes.

It wasn’t until the fourth quarter when Andrei Bargnani hit the lone field goal that the Nets’ bench accumulated in this 48-minute long contest.

The Nets’ 12-point loss overshadows just how ugly this team looked outside of Brook Lopez. The Dallas victory over this team also says a lot about how much less productive their offense is compared to the Western Conference elite, who routinely bash the Brooklyn Nets.

FINAL BOX SCORE

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Bojan Bogdanovic Goes to Toronto!

There haven’t been many bright moments for the Brooklyn Nets franchise this year. But some good news came to the Barclays Center. Bojan Bogdanovic will be a part of the All-Star Weekend festivities in Toronto. Bogdanovic, the second year player out of Croatia, was named to the World Team Roster for the Rising Stars Challenge on February 12, 2016.

This is the second time in as many years that Bojan Bogdanovic will participate in the game. He joins three other Nets players, teammate Brook Lopez, Mason Plumlee, and Kenyon Martin, as participants in this game twice in their careers.

It’s highly unlikely that anyone will see any other Nets players in a Brooklyn uniform. If any players are seen they will probably be in street clothes watching the action from the stands.

Bojan Bogdanovic has season averages of 9.5 points and 3.4 rebounds on 42 percent shooting this season. Bogdanovic has watched his minutes on the floor go up and down in the 46 games this season due to the porous defense at times and the inconsistent jumper.

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Brooklyn Nets History Vault: Nightmare On Dwight Street

The Brooklyn Nets are in a state of transition right now. This month Mikhail Prokhorov bought out Bruce Ratner and his partners for the Nets and various other commodities. Then Lionel Hollins was fired as Head Coach and General Manager Billy King was reassigned (allegedly) to other advisement duties in the organization (aka, as you were, just don’t get seen) on a Sunday afternoon. As of this writing, there have been no replacements and the team is the cautionary tale of NBA teams going forward of what not to do in ways of dealing with the luxury tax and future draft picks.

This is a long descriptive way of saying that the Brooklyn Nets are a dysfunctional mess. No doubt about it.

But would you believe that this franchise could have been in even worse shape?

Forget the Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry deal on draft night. There was a worse deal the Brooklyn Nets (then in New Jersey) could have done that REALLY could have destroyed the franchise.

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Brooklyn Nets Rumors: Bryan Colangelo GM?

It has been about two weeks since Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins got fired and Billy King gets reassigned and STILL…

NO GENERAL MANAGER! This is badoodles!

Well at least you can’t call this team boring anymore. At least the Nets can be mentioned these days in NBA circles without eyes rolling with the unasked question of “Can we talk about something else?” But the one thing we can all look forward to these days is a truck load of Brooklyn Nets rumors to satisfy us for the rest of the season.

There was no timetable from the Nets’ owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, to hire a GM and it was made perfectly clear that there will be a GM and head coach to collaborate and run this team. It is also understood that the GM will be hired before the head coaching search starts. According to Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Brooklyn Nets have a desire to have a GM in place by the trade deadline on February 18th.

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Brooklyn Nets Rumors: Danny Ferry For GM?

With the Brooklyn Nets out of the playoff picture and victories few and far in between (If anyone bet on the Oklahoma City Thunder losing to the Nets in Vegas, can I have $500? Now you can afford it!) the only thing Brooklyn Nets fans have to look forward to is reading about all the Brooklyn Nets rumors, from the coaching search to the endless trail of hearsay until the trade deadline passes. But all of these Brooklyn Nets rumors is tied to one big event that has to take place…

The General Manager search.

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Recap: Nets 98, Heat 102 - “Gerald Green Can Fly”

Gerald Green in action

Gerald Green in action

Just a game removed from perhaps their most impressive, and surprising, win of the 2015-16 season, the Brooklyn Nets fell into familiar patterns in their 98-102 home loss to the Miami Heat Tuesday night.

The Brooklyn Nets have at least improved their play on the offensive side of the ball, after a solid three weeks of futility following the Jarrett Jack injury. Outside of the third quarter against Miami, where the offense coughed up the ball eight times and scored just 16 points on five made field goals, the ball moved a bit better overall (24 assists) and players mostly moved towards the basket (23 free-throw attempts) when they weren’t converting on their catch-and-shoot opportunities (9/18 shooting the three). Andrea Bargnani feasted on the face-up looks and led the team with 20 points on an efficient 9/12 shooting, while the Nets finished at 50.7-percent from the field against the league’s fifth-best defense

The issues for Brooklyn all season, however, have resided on defense, along with their casual treatment of the basketball. While the Nets were dying for a basket in the third quarter, Miami continued to rely on their Dwyane Wade/Chris Bosh pick and pops to generate consistent offense, and rode their All-Star duo for 54-combined points on 40 shot attempts. Bosh’s presence in particular helped to draw Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young away from the rim and scrambling to the perimeter, as the Heat role players attacked the basket around him to establish a 50-28 advantage in points scored in the paint. Miami would convert on 54.2-percent of their field goal attempts and turn the ball over 12 times (compared to 16 Brooklyn turnovers), while only outscoring their opponents in one quarter all game - in a 26-16 third quarter.

The loss drops the Brooklyn Nets to 12-34 on the season, with their next game coming Friday night at the Barclays Center against the (26-21) Dallas Mavericks.

FULL BOX SCORE

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Recap: Nets 116, Thunder 106 – Lopez Heats Up During the Blizzard

After a four-hour weather delay, a pair of streaks came to an end in New York on Sunday when the Brooklyn Nets upended the Oklahoma City Thunder 116-106.

The Nets, who were led by a season-high 31 points from Brook Lopez, broke a five-game losing streak. The Thunder were led by an especially impressive Kevin Durant performance, but ultimately saw their seven-game winning streak come to an end in Brooklyn.

In spite of Durant’s 32 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, the Thunder failed to lead at any point in the game. Every run from Durant and the Thunder was answered by an impressive array of post moves and aggression from Lopez, who also added 10 rebounds and three blocks.

Highlights from Lopez’s Duel with Durant

Lopez exploited a notable gap in Oklahoma City’s frontcourt, with Steven Adams sitting out due to an injured right elbow. Nick Collison started in his place, but he and Serge Ibaka were unable to match up with Lopez’s size and skillset.

The Thunder and Nets played an even third quarter but Lopez and the starters got some needed help off the bench from Bojan Bogdanovic. The shooting guard came off the bench to score 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting to help the bench outscore its counterpart 38-34. Shane Larkin played the passing lanes well with the second unit, racking up four steals.

FULL BOX SCORE

  • Markel Brown, who had an impressive stint in Saturday’s loss, did not appear against the Thunder.
  • Thaddeus Young filled the stat sheet once again, picking up 14 points, 14 rebounds, three assists, one steal and a block in 39 minutes.
  • It might have been a different game for Brooklyn if Durant found his stroke from beyond the arc. His performance was stunted by him shooting just 2-of-10 on 3-pointers.
  • In a rare turn of events, the Nets actually outshot their opponent from beyond the arc. Brooklyn shot 47 percent from 3-point range, while the Thunder struggled, shooting just 30 percent.

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Brooklyn Nets Midseason Reports: Front Office

The Brooklyn Nets might go down in history as the team most ready for a reality show. With all of the drama and dysfunction that has gone on behind the scenes, the team could make up their luxury tax fees in a matter of weeks.

Going into the halfway part of the season, it is very clear that the Brooklyn Nets will have no chance at the playoffs unless teams fold financially or Michael Jordan of 1986 comes through the Barclays Center doors and asks to play. (Oh, that’s right, it’s 2016…). I guess the Nets are looking towards the lottery, where they gift wrap their number one pick to the Boston Celtics.

I guess that’s a perfect segue into the midseason reports for the front office.

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