Lichtenstein: Don't Look Now, But Nets May Be Watchable This Season

By Steve Lichtenstein
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With a World Series Game 7, a Knicks home game, and, well, the infinite number of entertainment options this City provides, I can't imagine there were many New York eyeballs on the Nets on Wednesday night, Ian Eagle's superlative announcing on the television broadcast notwithstanding.

I won't fault any of you -- my own sons pretty much gave up on Brooklyn basketball after the wreckage left behind by the prior regime. Forecasted to plummet to the bottom of the NBA this season, the Nets are miles below almost everyone's radar.

MORE: Lichtenstein: Nets Have Further To Fall Before Turning It Around

However, while Kenny Atkinson might not record a whole lot of wins during his rookie campaign, after just five games the Nets' coach has already accomplished the seemingly impossible -- he's made the team watchable.

The Nets run an offense. They share the ball and move without it. They hustle. They may give up a ton of points per possession (1.053, 20th in the league), but it's not due to a lack of effort.

They can be fun.

And when the Nets face the right opponent at the right time -- like the Pistons on Wednesday night, their third game in four nights -- they're capable of producing good outcomes.

The Nets scored 71 (!!!) points in the first half and held on without the services of starting point guard Jeremy Lin to defeat visiting Detroit, 109-101.

It was only Brooklyn's second victory in five games, but what has stood out in this admittedly small sample size is the team's competitiveness in the face of nightly talent deficits. Outside of one lopsided home loss to the Bulls, they have fought to the end in every game.

The Nets could have been standing above water had they dressed center Brook Lopez, who dominated Detroit with 34 points and 10 rebounds, in lieu of a rest day (see below) for their two-point loss in Milwaukee on Saturday.

"If we can continue to play the way we played tonight as far as energy, effort and plays like that -- 50/50 balls -- we'll be all right," Lopez said.

If there's one player who embodies the Nets' new-found energy at Barclays Center, it's Trevor Booker.

The 28-year-old power forward, one of 10 new faces on Brooklyn's roster, was signed as a free agent in the summer as a replacement for the traded Thaddeus Young.

While Booker doesn't possess Young's craftiness around the basket, he has embraced his role as the team's battery pack.

Booker stood up for rookie teammate Isaiah Whitehead by getting tangled up with Detroit goon Aron Baynes during a fourth-quarter kerfuffle.

Booker saved his best for crunch time. In the final 1:20 he made three tremendous hustle plays -- a sneaky steal of Baynes in the backcourt, a chase-down block of a sure Kentavious Caldwell-Pope layup, and then secured an offensive rebound with 16 seconds remaining to force the Pistons to foul.

"We made some good plays down the stretch to really seal the deal," Booker said. "Everybody stepped up. It was just a great team effort."

Atkinson has gotten every ounce of effort from many of his misfit toys.

Sean Kilpatrick, general manager Sean Marks' D-League find at the tail end of last season, also went for a double-double (24 points, 10 rebounds) against Detroit.

Kilpatrick was forced into duty at point guard when Lin was shelved right before halftime with what the Nets called a strained left hamstring. With Greivis Vasquez and Randy Foye inactive due to injuries, Atkinson had no other options.

"I just wanted to continue to keep getting everybody involved and making sure I was still staying aggressive because as a point guard, it's kind of tough," Kilpatrick said. "I said to Jeremy, 'I don't know how you do it -- this is kind of crazy.'"

Kilpatrick said that the most difficult adjustment was paying attention to the shot clock, especially late in the game when he had to slow things down with the Nets protecting a lead.

Fortunately, Atkinson had given Kilpatrick reps at the point during the Nets' summer league season in Las Vegas.

"Sean played that offense all summer," Atkinson said. "I told him at halftime to just pretend it's summer league. Bring the ball up, get us into motion. That's kind of the beauty of playing a team offense."

I have been very skeptical about the whole "culture change" approach designed by Marks and Atkinson. It has been my view that there's no substitute for talent in the NBA and it will be a while before the Nets can "match up" man-for-man with the rest of the league.

MORE: Lichtenstein: Nets Betting Culture Change Will Eventually Lift Franchise

However, I have to give the new administration credit for the way these players have bought-in so quickly.

At the very least, I am grateful that my sons are back to watching Nets games with me.

***

As a follow-up to my prior post about the Nets' usage of Lopez (or lack thereof), I asked Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy prior to Wednesday's game about the growing trend toward programmed rest days.

Never one to shy from a controversial topic, Van Gundy took a veiled shot at the Nets and other teams.

"(Resting players) is up to each coach, I guess, and each organization. Look, I'm not one to do it. Our guys get paid to play 82 games. Everybody that's healthy will play for us every single night, but that's just us," Van Gundy said. "Unfortunately, you've got to be willing to -- as a coach now -- you're going to get criticized for that. Like if you try to win every game, you get criticized for that now. 'You don't have a long-term vision and you're short-sighted.' That all may be true of me, but we're going to put our best guys out there every night and try to win.

"It's been a little surprising to me the guys being rested already. I mean, are guys really worn down already?" Van Gundy continued. "We're four games into the year and guys are resting their players. That part has been surprising to me. I know it's a league-wide trend as we get into the season, but I really didn't expect to see it the first week, to be quite honest. That's not us and there's other ways to rest people. Look, the media will judge you by how many minutes your guys play, but we can actually rest guys other ways. Like tomorrow will be a day off for us -- that's a day of rest -- and I think actually will provide more rest for them than playing four fewer minutes tonight or something like that. I don't think you have to rest guys game night. I think it's fine if people want to -- that's their choice and people have done it very effectively. I think every team and every guy is a different situation. It's just not the way we're going to do things and I'll take whatever criticism comes with that."

Lopez did his considerable damage to the Pistons in just 29 minutes, which was actually his season high. The Nets nearly paid a price for Lopez's extended stay on the bench as the Pistons whittled a 16-point lead midway through the third quarter to seven by the time he returned with 8:24 remaining.

After speaking with several folks around the Nets, I stand by my prediction that all of this special handling is being done so that the team can trade Lopez sometime this season.

For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Jets and the NHL, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1