Game 1: Initial Thoughts

From the initial reactions, Vince Carter’s left hamstring injury suffered in the second quarter of today’s preseason game doesn’t seem serious.

After the Nets 100-98 overtime win over the Heat in Paris, Carter told the reporters at the Bercy Arena that he felt he caught it before it got serious. And coach Lawrence Frank called it a “little strained hamstring.”

Carter hurt himself on a drive and when he got to the end of the court starting signaling to the bench that he wanted to come out. He was done for the night.

“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Frank said. “We’ll kind of take it day-to-day.”

Obviously, the Nets can’t afford a serious setback to Carter, their best player. Jarvis Hayes has been out more than a week with a hamstring injury. But the initial reactions are not one of concern.

As for the game, the Nets showed fight to win this game. They were down 12 when Carter left and then got a huge boost from his replacement, rookie Chris Douglas-Roberts, who scored 12 consecutive points for the Nets.

The Nets led by nine when Devin Harris left with 5:53 left in the fourth and were up 10 with about 4:35 to go, but of course couldn’t maintain the lead. They pulled out the win in the extra session when Daequan Cook’s three-pointer at the buzzer was short.

Cook wound up sending the game into OT with a long two that was believed to be a three. At least that’s what the score said on TV because the Heat were up by one when Maurice Ager’s baseline try hit the side of the backboard.

***

The Nets started Carter, Devin Harris, Sean Williams, Bobby Simmons and Ryan Anderson. Their second unit was Eddie Gill, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Josh Boone, Trenton Hassell and Stromile Swift.

Frank said he went with two teams for six-minute increments for this game, but it won't be this way always, naturally.

Yi Jianlian and No. 10 pick Brook Lopez didn’t play – coach’s decision, which will be explained later. Unavailable for this game were Eduardo Najera, who re-aggravated his left wrist in practice yesterday, Jarvis Hayes (hamstring) and Keyon Dooling (sprained left ankle).

In a conference call with the beat guys, Frank was asked why Brook didn’t play. His answer:

“The way we did it was, and I told those guys in the morning, we have seven big guys between fours and fives and to give everyone a fair evaluation I’m not going to chop up their minutes,” Frank said. “I told him and Yi that tonight wasn’t going to be their night, to support their teammates and Sunday they’ll get a crack at it and someone else won’t.

“That’s the only fair way to give guys a chance as opposed to playing a guy 10 minutes, another guy 10 minutes. Let’s give them an opportunity to show what they can do over extended minutes.”

Makes sense.

***

Some observations:

* You can see why they like Ryan Anderson. The kid works hard and doesn’t let a bad defensive possession or missed shot affect his next trip down the court. He gets after it. One notable play was after he took the ball out in the far court, Anderson came down and rebounded Devin Harris’ miss and converted it inside. It was one of nine boards for Anderson, who shot 1-of-6 from three and 4-of-12 overall. Anderson also had a nice assist in overtime feeding a cutting Douglas-Roberts for a layup to put the Nets up 99-95.

* After some sloppy play early, Harris settled in and had a terrific second half. He got to the basket whenever he wanted and had impressive back-to-back driving scores to put the Nets up nine in the fourth. Harris had 21 points, two assists and five turnovers.

* Frank called Douglas-Roberts a competitor and you saw why. After they lost Carter, CDR came in and carried the team for a while. The rookie carried them. During his 18-point, six-rebound, three-steal game, Douglas-Roberts showed his versatility by scoring outside and inside, off the dribble, off steals, on the break and threw in an over-the-head reverse slam. But he took a bad shot – a deep three – late in the OT.

* Before he got hurt, Carter looked good. He went at the defense and the fact that he tried to draw charges on back-to-back trips in the first quarter was a good sign since everyone knows defense isn’t Carter’s forte. Another good thing is that it was his hamstring and not his ankle – for obvious reasons.

* Without Harris and Carter in there late, the offense didn’t look good, as expected. But on the last three trips of regulation you have to get better shots than an off-balanced Trenton Hassell jumper, a badly missed Eddie Gill jumper and Ager’s baseline brick. As we noted earlier, CDR took a bad shot in OT. Realistically, though, other than maybe CDR, those three won’t be on the floor at the end of games, if they’re here at the end of the month.

* Josh Boone, who worked on his jump shot in the summer, knocked down a baseline shot at the start of overtime. He thinks he will get at least three open jumpers a game and hopes to take advantage of them. Boone also gave the Nets a two-point late lead in regulation with a rebound slam of Hassell’s miss. Boone’s numbers: 10 points, nine rebounds, six offensive.

* Heat rookie Michael Beasley is a player. There were times that Sean Williams was able to slow him down, but for the most part Beasley got what we wanted, when he wanted it and finished with 21 and seven. He probably wishes he had that second free throw back that would have tied the game with 12 seconds left in overtime.

***

Try not to get too high or too low based on this game. Five of the guys who didn’t play - Yi, Lopez, Dooling, Hayes and Najera – likely will be in the rotation. This is the time to sort things out as far as who’s in and who’s out.

One thing is certain, and we all knew this, the Nets have too many bigs and not all of them can play. The Nets probably will have to make a trade at some point to lessen the glut of bigs.

***

The Nets will say goodbye to Paris tomorrow and take a train to London. They play the Heat at London’s O2 Arena on Sunday at 2 p.m. on NBA TV.

Comments

[Jeff]

Selfishly, I'm glad the Nets held out both Yi and Brook. I was at work and couldn't watch the game. Sounds like both CDR and Ryan had good games.

[Tristram]

RECORD these games!! This was fun to watch (although not VC's injury). Nets worked hard on defense.

[Adam.y]

I really liked the game.
The Nets in a pre-season game no less showed more heart than the entire unit showed last year after Vince was injured.

Devin and CDR took over both clearly belong in the starting spots in my opinion (Even though Devin's a given).
Anderson,Sean and Boone all played very well, definately made the rotation (which should be a 5 man game with Lopez and Yi).
Gill surprised the heck out of me for one that was a very plesant surprise, I think he deserves that third PG roster spot.
Simmons looked pretty good.

Im not worried at all by the production of that 2nd unit because it really doesnt even resemble our real 2nd unit Swift,Ager and Hassel wont get minutes come season time.

[Kevin D]

Got to love CDR. VC is going to lead this group to exceed expectations, though that probably won't include playoffs. It should be fun to watch these young guys develop into a competitive team.