Jackson: "Brooklyn Situation is Good"

There were many rumors of Phil Jackson returning as an head coach in the NBA. Unfortunately, Jackson has finally revealed  that he does not want to coach anymore on the Dan Patrick Show Tuesday night. The closest job in the NBA for Jackson was in Seattle but Chris Hansen (owner)  failed to  buy the Sacramento Kings. Jackson would have a choices in that organization but that project is no longer happening.

He also said that the Brooklyn Nets situation was a good one but he just simply does not want to coach. He didn't even have to think about it.


The answer was not surprising due to the Brooklyn Nets roster. They are a good team but have a long way to go to become championship contenders. With Jackson aging and not wanting to travel with the team on some games allegedly, it is likely that he would want to step in a situation that is worth while.

I would have love to see the Nets run the triangle offense between Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez. The game would come much easier contrary to the isolation heavy offense that has plagued Johnson's career and the Nets for several. Hopefully, Billy King will find the right coach who demands respect and has the ability to bring the best out of the Nets star players. This season was successful but that was all forgotten when they lost to a team full role players. The standards were obviously too high and a championship in three years may be on the same page. The Nets organization should just focus on progression and nothing else.

Source -ESPN..com


Follow @NetsTakeOver

Nets fans message to Billy King: Bring back Anthony Morrow!

We all remember Anthony Morrow, right? Okay so if you don't, he played for the Nets the last two seasons in New Jersey. In his time in New Jersey, Morrow displayed pure class, enthusiasm, and a three-point stroke that could send you into a daze. He became a fan-favorite almost instantly. His passion for the game was immense. There wasn't a single game that Morrow didn't leave his 110% effort on the court. The Nets endured hard times in New Jersey since 2007. But for Nets fans, Anthony Morrow was that rare kind of player that any team would love to have. His respect for the organization as a whole was endearing. Nets fans would remember his outstanding performance last season against the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game in which he scored 42 points while nailing eight three-pointers. He displayed his respect for the organization and the late Drazen Petrovic during the three-point contest during the 2012 All-Star Weekend by wearing Drazen's jersey. He was my personal favorite player before that night, but his actions that night solidified his place as MY all-time favorite Net. Many fans feel the same way I do.

In fact, a campaign has already been started on twitter by many Nets fans tweeting the hashtag #BringMorrowToBrooklyn. Anthony Morrow himself endorsed it on his instagram page. But does he fit in with this Nets team as it stands?

The Nets have lacked something all year that Morrow provides for them. A sharpshooter that can play both the shooting guard and small forward position. The Nets are shallow at the small forward behind Gerald Wallace, so adding Morrow to fill in as that scoring back-up small forward. So to answer that question, yes. Anthony Morrow CAN fit on this Nets roster. Now the question is can the Nets afford him? If he takes the veterans minimum, the Nets can bring him in.

Morrow had his struggles last season finding a role with the Atlanta Hawks and the Dallas Mavericks. He got hurt earlier in the season and after that, his minutes took a hit and then he was traded to the Mavericks at the trade deadline. He averaged just four points last season in just nine minutes of playing time per game. The Nets trading him was the worst thing that could happen to him. But if he is offered a contract by Billy King, as he should be, I expect his minutes to jump back up as he would hold a much bigger role with this Nets team that lacks sharpshooters.

If you want to join the movement, tweet using the hashtag #BringMorrowToBrooklyn and follow @MorrowComeBack.

Follow @NetsTakeOver

Nets Missing Toughness or leadership?

"I felt like we should’ve won this series and been playing still," Williams said. "It was a season of a lot of ups and downs. We’ve been talking about it all season. So hopefully we say this is a learning experience. I don’t think anyone expected us to win a championship this year, so just bounce back, prepare in the offseason and hope to come back stronger mentally and physically. "

“When we move the ball and we’re not just iso-ing it,” he said. “Pushing the ball up and down the floor. Getting into a good rhythm, a good flow. I think when we just keep it on one side, the ball kind of sticks, we don’t have success.”

Deron Williams has been criticised for not being a leader all season and this playoff loss to an depleted team does not look good on his resume. Williams is the type of leader who leads by example and couldn't this season because of his injuries, the "offense", and being out of shape coming into the season. The media overuses the word leader but does not specify what that leader should do. An perfect example would be Charles Barkley questioning the Nets passion on the court. How can you question someones will to win based off their body language and not having some kind of inside information. Too much criticism is given to the Nets qualities while there is not enough attention going to the Chicago Bulls defense or the stagnant offense of the Nets. Without Question the Nets played bad but Tom Thibodeau is a defensive specialist.

A problem for the Nets was basically everything. When you let Marco Belinelli score at will , Nate Robinson get into the lane then there is an serious problem. Joakim Noah scoring 22 points is just outrageous and Lopez needs to get tougher period. Offensively, the Nets rely on isolations heavily and the Bulls are one of the best at stopping them. There were times when Andray Blatche and C.J. Watson going one on three while Williams is on the floor. But that is just an issue of  learning how to play with each other. Williams can score but he has to find a balance which allows Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez to score. Either way, the Nets need to get better (tougher) because the main players will be together for a long time and the Eastern Conference will be much healthier next season.

"We didn’t have the kind of postseason we wanted to and hoped to and that’s definitely, you know, fuel for next year."

Source- ESPN
Follow @NetsTakeOver

P.J. Carlesimo Fired!

"The Brooklyn Nets organization would like to thank P.J. for his efforts with the team in his roles as both head coach and assistant, and for his contributions to the team's success both on and off the court," general manager Billy King said in a news release.

P.J. Carlesimo did what he could with this current roster. Trying to get production out of a team that was put together in one summer is an hard job to especially if you were thrown into the spotlight. For the most part Carlesimo did well. He finished with a regular season record with 35 wins and 19 losses. He also finished with a great record when beating teams with losing records. The problem with the Nets was beating playoff teams at a consistent level which did not happen at all this year. This problem was illuminated in the recent series against Chicago.

Part of the problem was the mid-season change from Avery Johnson to P.J. Carlesimo. Yes, the change somehow ignited the team to play much better even though the team was 14 and 14. We will never know how Avery would have coached the team but it would be fair to say that he would have done a better job, simply because it was his system. Carlesimo tweaked it and added a few plays for Deron Williams but nothing was really different. Just ask LeBron James. It was probably inevitable that Carlesimo would not be coaching the Nets next season but he had a chance to prove himself in the playoffs but that was a major fail.

Going up against Tom Thibodeau was clearly a disadvantage for Carlesimo and there should be no logical reason for anyone to think Carlesimo would out-coach him. But you have to think Carlesimo would make some adjustments. In game four when the Nets suffered a heart breaking loss, several mistakes were made. The Bulls went with fouling Reggie Evans and Gerald Wallace in the game and Carlesimo did not want to take them out in time, which ended up being crucial. They also went with hedging the pick-n-roll play when Lopez could not handle it. He gave the opposing player too much room and teams exposed that all season. The game-plan was also questionable because Joakim Noah was clearly dominating Brook Lopez in the post and had trouble scoring when doing so, even though he scored his fair share this series. Williams penetrated and attacked the rim at will but they decided to run screens to get Williams open instead. All of this does not fall on Carlesimo since veterans Williams and Joe Johnson should have noticed this too. However, the blame will always go to the coach, especially if he is an intern.

With Carlesimo gone, the Nets will have some names to go after and some players too. Phil Jackson is officially ruled out but there are other popular coaches who have good resumes like Jerry Sloan and Jeff Van Gundy. Check here for the worthy candidates.


Source - ESPN
Follow @NetsTakeOver

Nets vs Bulls Recap: Nets Eliminated

With the series tied at three wins a piece for the Nets and Bulls, the two teams took the floor for the deciding game seven at Barclays Center. The Bulls came out with an all-out effort and beat the Nets 99-93. The Nets are now eliminated from the playoffs.

The first half left a lot to be desired for Nets fans everywhere. The first quarter was more evenly matched. The Nets shot 56% in the first while Chicago shot 50% but the lack of rebounding by the Nets cost them. They trailed the Bulls 29-25 after one. When the second quarter came along, Chicago completely destroyed the Nets in every aspect of the game. They outscored Brooklyn 32-19 in the quarter, giving them a 61-44 lead at halftime. The Nets looked lost the entire half, which could be defined by all the blown defensive assignments leading to easy baskets. Deron Williams and Andray Blatche played their parts, but they were the only ones who did. Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez both got off to terrible starts scoring a combined seven points, all belonging to Brook Lopez. The ability of Chicago to crash the boards was blatant in the first half. The Nets couldn't box out the likes of Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer to save their lives.

The third quarter was all Nets, but they couldn't close the gap completely. They trimmed the Chicago lead down to seven all thanks to the spectacular play by Gerald Wallace, who made three three-pointers in the quarter. Not only did the offense step up, but the defense did as well. The Nets outscored Chicago 31-21 in that third quarter, making the score 82-75. The fourth quarter was the Nets final opportunity to finish an epic comeback off, but it couldn't be done. The offense couldn't get going soon enough and the Nets in the fourth. They out-scored Chicago 18-17, but it wasn't enough.

Deron Williams was the Nets leading scorer, putting up 24 points while dishing out seven assists. Brook Lopez added 21 points and nine rebounds. Gerald Wallace had himself an outstanding game putting up 19 points and dishing out five assists. Joe Johnson decided to not show up tonight, putting up six points on 2-14 shooting.

For the Bulls, Joakim Noah absolutely abused Brook Lopez and put up 24 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Marco Belinelli put up 24 points as well and Carlos Boozer added 17 points and seven rebounds.


Final Score: 99-93 Bulls
Most Disappointing Stat of The Game: Joe Johnson 6 points on 2-14 shooting
Promising Stat of The Game: Gerald Wallace 19 points
Scariest Moment of The Game: Chicago taking a 17 point lead.
Best Moment of The Game: Deron Williams with the 55 foot bounce pass to Gerald Wallace
Follow @NetsTakeOver

Joakim Noah promises a win for Chicago in game seven

Joakim Noah made a bold guarantee after last nights Bulls 95-92 loss to the Nets. He guaranteed a win for the Bulls. And he made that very clear.

"We're a team of fighters," Noah said after the Bulls' loss in Game 6 on Thursday night. "We keep getting punched in the face but we fight back. I'm proud of this team, and we're going to go into a hostile environment in Brooklyn and we're going to win."

The Bulls haven't had the best luck health-wise this year, and that has certainly been the case during this series. With injuries to Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, and Joakim Noah having his lingering foot injury, the Bulls have continued to put up a little fight since leading 3-1 in the series. But now the series is tied at three wins a piece and the Bulls will in fact be entering what is assumed to be a very hostile Barclays Center.

P.J. Carlesimo came right out and stated that the Nets can deliver the knockout punch to the Bulls for the season.

"I've got a ton of confidence in these guys," he said. "They've been resilient all year. They've stepped up many, many times when people didn't think we could step up. We've played well on the road. We've beaten a lot of the better teams in the league, and the reward for the way we played in the regular season is that Game 7 of the first round is in our building. So, I'm just very confident our guys are going to take advantage of the opportunity and continue to do what they've done all year."

Nate Robinson and the Bulls remain confident that they can pull through and advance to the second round to play Miami.

"We just got to play through it," Robinson said. "Regardless of being sick or not, our guys, we all play our asses off. We got to continue to do that."

Nate even had a chance to crack a joke about his illness during last nights game.

"There was a couple times I had to throw up during the game," Robinson said. "But I didn't know if they were going to call a foul on me if I threw up on Deron Williams and played through it. But I don't know; we got to check the rulebook on that one." 

 But where are the Bulls at mentally going into the biggest game so far this season?

"[Our confidence is] going up," Bulls guard Jimmy Butler said. "It's sure not going to go down. They know they got to win Game 7; we know we got to win Game 7. Same style of basketball; it's going to be a fight. The tougher team is going to get the win, and we go in wanting to be the tougher team."

"We just got to go there, put our boxing gloves back on and tell everybody, 'Be ready to play,'" Taj Gibson said. "It's no time to be hurt, sick; it could be the end of the season. So we have to go out there, just put forth a lot of effort. There's no time to worry about small things; we got to just push the limit." 

Joakim Noah seems to be ready to go out and do just as Gibson said.

"I'm ready to play," he said. "I want to go play right now. Those are my emotions." 

Source: ESPN Chicago
Follow @NetsTakeOver

Nets at Bulls Recap: Ugly Win

Kirk Hinrich was ruled out before the game and there were talks of Luol Deng , Nate Robinson and Taj Gibson being sick with the flu. Only Luol Deng missed the game but it was clearly an advantage for the Nets.

First Half: With limited offensive firepower, the Bull surprisingly shot well for the first quarter. The Nets were trading baskets with them and they had a nice lead for most of the half. Joe Johnson was more than a decoy in first quarter.  He scored 10 points, shooting a couple of fade away shots looking healthy. Marco Belinelli and Gerald Wallace were battling in the second quarter and Belinelli took advantage .He left off with 13 and 6 assist. Deron Williams ended the quarter with a 4 point play on Nate Robinson which also gave him his third foul. That was a huge shot but they only had a 7 point lead at the half. Both teams shot over 50% from the field but Chicago lead in the rebounding stat with 19.

Second Half: The Bulls struggled to score in the opening quarter and they also got into foul trouble. They committed 4 team fouls and Boozer also committed his fourth. The Nets did not take advantage because they forgot how to play defense and score. In the third quarter, they shot 3 for 15 and missed several free throws. The Bulls being in foul trouble helped the Nets  but Belinelli made sure the game was close. The fourth quarter was no different but they did maintain a minimal lead. The Bulls did everything in their power to win but the absence of Deng combined with Boozer fouling out was too much to overcome . Robinson hit a few clutch shots and almost made it another scary night.  Belinelli had a chance to tie it at three but he missed and Joakim Noah stepped out of bounds with the rebound. The Nets escaped with the win and  Williams finished with 17 points and 11 assists. For the Bulls, Belinelli was the high scorer finishing with 22 points and 7 assists.

Box Score

Final Score: 95-92 Nets
Most Disappointing Stat of The Game: 22-33 from the free throw line.
Promising Stat of The Game: 10 points from Johnson in the first quarter.
Scariest Moment of The Game Belinelli with the potential tying three pointer.
Best Moment of The Game: Andray Blatche making two free throws with 19 seconds left.

Follow @NetsTakeOver

A rejuvenation for Gerald Wallace

We've been waiting for it all year, but it looks like the Gerald Wallace we all expected to get when he signed his 4-year, $40 million deal this past off-season has finally arrived. His play during this series against the Bulls has been almost outstanding. Every stat he struggled with in the regular season has shot up and his intangibles are even better than they were in the regular season. Not to mention he's made quite a few clutch shots.

To start with, Wallace's three point percentage has taken an astounding leap from 28.2% in the regular season to 35.3%. There hasn't been a large sample size, just 5 games so far in the series, you can tell that Wallace has a lot more confidence in his shot. After averaging just 7.7 points per game in the regular season, Crash is up averaging 10 points in this series against the Bulls. He's even making almost all his layups after struggling all season to put the ball in the basket. His field goal percentage has also taken a huge leap from 39.7% in the regular season to 46.2% in the series. So it looks like he finally found his role after admitting to the media that he had no idea what his role was with the team. The only thing Wallace continues to struggle with is his free throw shooting. After shooting 63.7% from the line in the regular season, his percentage went down to 57.1% in this series.

On the topic of defense, Gerald Wallace has done some of his best work all season on Bulls' all-star small forward Luol Deng. Deng, who had a very solid regular season for the Bulls, has seen all of his numbers take a hit in this series. He's averaging 13.8 points per game in the series and is down shooting just 38.1% from the field while shooting a horrific 5.6% from the three point line. This, in large part, is due to the tenacious defending by Gerald Wallace.

So what can we take from the vast improvement of Gerald Wallace's play in this series? Maybe he has his confidence back. He's had an issue with his confidence all season long and eventually lost all faith in his shooting abilities. Maybe the improvement is due to the fact that he's being more aggressive on offense. Instead of settling for silly three pointers, Wallace is attacking the basket a lot more than he did in the regular season. He seems to have found his role just by watching him play. I would say that this might be a rejuvenated Gerald Wallace. The playoffs serve as a brand new season for the players. This may be new beginning for the man we call Crash.

Follow @NetsTakeOver

Joe Johnson a 'Decoy' for Nets

Joe Johnson has been playing through a great deal of pain during this playoff series against the Chicago Bulls, and he even admits it. He states that he's pretty much playing on just one leg and his abilities are severely limited on the court. He has been playing through some pretty bad plantar fasciitis since February. Johnson expressed doubt that he would even play at all if this were the regular season, that's how severe the injury is.

“It’s kind of like I’m out there on one leg, honestly, man," Johnson said on Wednesday. "I can't really push the basketball if I get a rebound. I can't really run pick-and-rolls, so basically I'm a decoy, a spot-up shooter. I can't really do a whole lot. Like I told Deron and Brook I'll be the bailout guy if you get into a sticky situation. Just try and find me."

P.J. Carlesimo spoke about how the condition of Johnson's foot would not change. It would not get any worse, but it also will not get any better at this point in the season. That just means Joe will have to push himself through this, even though it will still be extremely painful. He was playing limited minutes after he came back from the injury in February, but that didn't really do much for him as his condition remained unchanged.

"I'm not concerned that Joe's playing injured,  (and) I'm not worried that he's going (to) injure it  anymore," Carlesimo said. "It's what it is. He's playing, hindered or whatever is the correct  word and it's just - he's dealing with it. I think that people probably don't appreciate what he's  going through every game to go out there and to play," Calesimo continued. "That's what warriors do."

 In response to Chicago Bulls' power forward Taj Gibson's remarks stating that the Bulls are more resilient due to the "fact" that they are more able to cope with injuries, Johnson said:

"It doesn't matter, doesn't mean anything, at this point," he said of the matter of toughness. "It's about who wants it bad enough. We've proven a lot in this series. Right now out backs are against the wall still, and we have to go to Chicago and win a game - point blank. The thing  about who's tougher - it doesn't matter at this point."

Johnson says that the Bulls have tried to take advantage of his injury by making him move a lot on defense. He said it's more challenging for him to play through his injury than it is for Bulls' center Joakim Noah because of the difference in positions.

 "I think (the Bulls) do the same thing - running me off picks and screens and making me move a lot," Johnson said. "I think it's a little different from me and Joakim Noah considering the fact  that he's a big man and I'm a guard. My game is predicated on moving around, chasing guys off picks and going off the dribble, running pick and rolls. So he has a little easier than what I   have."

Source: New York Daily News
 Follow @NetsTakeOver