8 of next 9 games at home, and Knicks is the only "away" game. They play Detroit, Phoenix, NYK, GS, Houston, Philly, Clippers, Orlando and Miami in that stretch. If they keep playing like this, there are a lot of potential wins there.
I know that the top teams may not have gotten "up" for these games, but there comes a point at which we have to admit that it's something beyond "other teams are playing down to them." The best thing we have going for us is that the Nets are running their starters ragged. Bench only had 62 minutes tonight in the game. Cleveland, which doesn't exactly have the best second team out there, let their bench play 86 minutes.
Mike
And that's a huge part of why they suck. They compete for 2 or 3 quarters, and by the last 6 or 7 minutes they are just exhausted. That's probably not going to change for the rest of the season unless they get a decent back up PG and back up big man. Trading Joe Johnson would help because he's killing them within at the moment.
Philly has had a lot of close games lately too- leading for 3 quarters or within a few points half way through the fourth quarter- but they always find a way to lose, similarly to Brooklyn.
Brooklyn has more experience so they will probably pull a few more of those close ones out than Philly, but 2 of their 3 wins have come vs Rockets and the Hawks who were both on the end of back to backs and the Nets had plenty of rest.
I do agree with you that if they are going to win any decent clip of games in a row, this home stretch is going to be when they do it- it's still highly unlikely though. Teams on the road are going to look at them as fresh prey. I mean their most likely wins in that stretch are NYK, Philly and Orlando. The others they are all underdogs- and they are still underdogs vs Orlando and New York. They could very easily go 1-8 in this 9 game stretch. I think the best they could hope for is 4 wins 5 losses and that would if they shoot really well from deep for 50% of those games (highly unlikely).
They have to fly home tonight after the Cavs loss, and play Detroit tomorrow. I don't know how they're going to stop the Jackson+Drummond pick and roll on the second of a back to back after Detroit's had 2 days off. Should be a nice start to their home stretch 
Ultimately, I always ask this question:
What 3 or 4 teams are categorically worse than the Nets?
I can honestly only say the 76ers and the Lakers (Lakers are blatantly tanking).
The Pelicans are going to be 8-12 wins more than Brooklyn unless Davis misses half the season, which is unlikely now he's been diagnosed with a contusion and not a tear.
The Nets are a bottom 4 NBA team. If we are generous we could say bottom 5.
But yeah, as the season goes on those minutes and frustration of losses are going to build up.
*would be nice if Lopez missed 25 games too*.
I've thought about this one quite a bit. I think you're right, I do think that they are worse than all but two. But the question is who will lose more games, and while the east is better than it was last year, it still doesn't match up to the west. Thus, I worry that two of Denver, Portland, Sacramento or Phoenix could end up really slipping. Brooklyn is awfully close in a lot of these games. If the hack had been called and Lopez's shot against GS had fallen, the Nets would look a lot different now.
Yes, I know they didn't, and that's part of being a lousy team. But it's too close for comfort for me. I'm sticking to a #4 to #8 draft pick for now.
Having said all that, basketball isn't really on my mind right now. The Pats are without their best all-around defensive player, best offensive lineman, best rusher and
two best wide receivers. My six-year old has volunteered to go in and play, I think he'd be about third on the depth chart at most positions on offense.
Mike
Topic: Official 2015-16 Brooklyn Nets Season Watch Thread (21-59, 3rd slot as of 4/12) (Read 572692 times)