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How Bad Are the Nets?

December 5, 2009

Sports Betting at the Sportsbook

Ash Marshall did a great job in this article of giving a breakdown of the Nets season so far, and asking if they are really as bad as they appear in setting the record for futility to start the season.

He starts with the preseason, where the team lost two close games to the Knicks—one by four points, another by two.  Then there was the loss to the Sixers despite leading by as many as 16.  One of the losses to the Celtics came despite carrying a nine-point lead into the fourth quarter and a one-point lead into the final 60 seconds.  After losing six of their seven warm-up scrimmages, the Nets finally got a preseason win under their belt against Philadelphia with a comprehensive 110-88 victory just five days before the curtain fell on the 2009 season opener.

Untangling the Defeats

The Nets are a mystery for a variety of reasons, they have played just as well with eight healthy players available as they have with a full complement of 15, they held the dangerous Portland Trailblazers to just 13 points in the third quarter, but then let the Nuggets drop 44 on them.  They blew a 19-point second-half lead in their opener against the Timberwolves, and lost twice to the Philadelphia 76ers within a week by just six points total.

A third-quarter meltdown saw the Nets blow a 14-point lead in Charlotte, and only Dwayne Wade’s three-pointer at the buzzer stopped them from upsetting the Heat.  They led for almost all of the first half against Orlando before losing by 16, and they fought back to within one point of the Knicks before slipping to a seven-point defeat.  Ash thinks this team could easily be 6-12 and not that far out of a playoff spot.  Noting that the Nets have led for more than three hours of game time, which is almost one quarter of their total time on court.

Five losses by less than 10 points, and 10 of their 18 by less than a dozen. Only once have they lost by more than 20, and that game could have gone either way until a third-quarter collapse.  There have been times when they have been thoroughly outplayed from start to finish such as against Portland, Sacramento, and the Lakers, but even in the worst defeats they have been within touching distance.

The team’s woes are on offense where they average 86.6 points, worst in the league.  The team’s 40.6 percent field goal success rate is also the worst in the NBA, and their 27.5 percent three-point shooting ranks ahead of only Minnesota.

He then goes game-by-game with his breakdown of what happened, well worth a read if you are a Nets fan or just want to know if there will be value with them in the NBA point spreads on their games coming up.

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