Tonight, your New Jersey Nets take on the Portland Trail Blazers at the Rose Garden. I will post my thoughts after every quarter.
First quarter
- Oh my Petro: it’s a new expression. It means Johan Petro, please stop. He’s made the weirdest, most asinine defensive plays. He has randomly double teamed guards and left his big man wide open at the rim.
- The one-two punch of Sundiata Gaines and Johan Petro has not worked out at all. Gaines has 2 fouls already.
- Kris Humphries is carrying the team early in the quarter.
- It is officially Gerald Green time. This is because the Nets are completely stagnant on offense and they need Green to score on his own. He has already hit a few midrange jumpers.
- Get out of here, Joel Pryzbilla. 2 fouls already and he’s guarding Petro.
Second quarter
- Oh my god DeShawn Stevenson! The most random offensive explosion of the season. He has hit 2 threes and one fade away jumper consecutively.
- Newsflash: Gerald Wallace still can’t hit a layup. He does many things very well though.
- LaMarcus Aldridge is trying to out-muscle the Hump and Humphries is responding fairly well.
- Wow, MarShon Brooks sure knows how to throw the alley-oop pass and Gerald Green knows how to finish it. DeShawn Stevenson should take notes.
- Normally, your point guards should be best at playing the point guard position on the team. That is surely not the case tonight. Gerald Wallace is doing a much nicer job than Sundiata Gaines. Gaines waits too long to put the offense in motion.
- What a ridiculous rainbow three by Jamal Crawford!
- The Nets are in hanging-around mode. They are always behind on the scoreboard, but they are still in striking range. 4 point game.
- Great baseline shot by Gerald Green to end the first half! Nets down by 2, 44-46. They are right where they want to be.
First half statistics
- For the Nets, Kris Humphries leads the team in points (13) and rebounds (7) and is well on his way to another double double. Gerald Wallace has 6 rebounds and Gerald Green has 10 points.
- For the Trail Blazers, LaMarcus Aldridge has 14 points but only 1 rebound. J.J. Hickson leads the team with 5 rebounds.
Third quarter
- The Nets don’t really have any bona-fide starters right now. They are starting to fall apart.
- LaMarcus Aldridge only had 1 rebound in the first half but wow, he is getting way too many offensive rebounds now.
- Terrible transition defense, Nets. Over and over again, the Trail Blazers are getting fast breaks. The only way to fix this is to do some running.
- An alley oop to Nicolas Batum. So many alley oops against the Nets!
- Kris Humphries shouldn’t be a center, ever. He is a better option than Petro, though.
- Morrow is knocking down so many shots early in the shot clock.
- The Nets are back in hang-around-mode. They are exchanging baskets with the Blazers.
My live notes end here. Jonah will discuss the fourth quarter in detail in his game recap.