Revisiting The Boston Massacre

Don't know if you caught the YES Pregame Show last night, but someone was put on the spot and picked the Blazers to beat the Nets.

Now, it would have been impressive if I said Jerryd Bayless would step in for injured Steve Blake and have a career game or the Nets would have trouble with the Blazers pick-and-roll. Then that would have been some real analysis.

Anyway, since I really have the pulse of this team - just kidding - here's my prediction for tomorrow: the Nets will not lose by 32 points. It will be much less than that.

Actually, I think there's a good chance the Nets beat Boston. They don't want to go on this tough four-game trip on a three-game losing streak. Three can turn to five and six and seven pretty quickly.

The Nets should have one of their best crowds of the season, the first afternoon home game since the '06-07 season, it's kid's day or something like that so there should be plenty of noise.

The Nets need to feed off this energy and their pride needs to kick in after what the Celtics did to them Wednesday and what happened in the fourth quarter against the Blazers.

So it comes down to defense and desire, not being out-worked or out-hustled.

That was one of the reasons coach Lawrence Frank brought the Nets in on Friday to show them film and go over some things.

He said he would have done it anyway, even though generally teams don't practice after back-to-back games. Can't remember in the 4 1/2 seasons I've covered the team under Frank that they've practiced after a back-to-back.

But you can understand why: they're not going to have a shootaround tomorrow and they needed to go over Boston and what happened a few nights ago.

I'm sure Frank will put it better, but here are some tips: guard Paul Pierce on the perimeter, stop Rajon Rondo from getting inside, put bodies on Leon Powe and Glen "Big Baby" Davis, show some fight and dunk the ball. The last is directed at Brook Lopez and other Nets who missed so many layups the other night.

The scary thing is in that expert analysis: Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were never mentioned, although Garnett is implied whenever you mention the Celtics.

"Obviously there's no substitute for competing and fighting, but there's some technical stuff you can do better," Frank said. "We're all in it, when you lose, you can't say, 'it's them.' I'm as much a part of the loss as them, so as a coach you try to look at things to put your guys in the best possible position to be successful and point out areas and show areas where we can do better."

Vince Carter said they went over the dos and don'ts. My guess is there were a lot more don'ts.

"The tape doesn't lie," Frank said. "When you see guys beating us to balls, and as a result of that, what happens when you don't, and the domino effect of not playing together and doing your job and helping someone else doing their job. And you see Boston, too. You can learn seeing one of the highest-level teams and what they do. You learn from a lot of experiences."
 
***

Carter called Friday a "productive day," because the Nets got to see film of what wrong in the last games - mostly defensively.

"Guys can physically see where they're messing up and what's he talking about," Carter said. "I think it was productive day as far as what we need to fix and understand."

***
Some TV crews came out to talk to Carter more about what he saw from his bedroom yesterday afternoon. He witnessed the U.S. Airways airplane land in the Hudson and was just in awe of the whole thing.

"It's not something you expect to see out of your window," Carter said. "I'm not one that's looking out the window every day and the day I decide to there's a plane landing in the Hudson. It was one of those things you never forget."

***
Frank was impressed that Sean Williams wanted to attend last night's game and be there with his teammates.

The Colorado 14ers are on a break since they don't play until Tuesday. And instead of going back to Houston for the break, he wanted to be with the Nets.

"I thought it was very admirable what Sean did," Frank said. "They don't practice until Sunday. They just got done with an 11-day trip. He very easily could have gone (home) to Houston, Dallas. Instead he called and said do you mind if I come back to Jersey? Of course not.

"So he came back here, and is going back Sunday. So it's very admirable what he did, to take the initiative to want to be around the team. He could have easily taken a couple days off, and nobody would begrudge him for it. "

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