To understand why the Nets seem to be a dangerous team again, it does not necessarily take savvy in X's and O's. But it's helpful to have been a passenger in a car.
"When you're in a car, if you're driving 75 miles per hour and you're the driver, you feel pretty comfortable," coach Lawrence Frank said Monday night before the Nets' victory over the Phoenix Suns.
"But if you're the passenger, you may not be real comfortable. So I think the key is, as much as possible, you have to try and be the driver. The key is tempo and what you can do to control it."
With back-to-back victories Sunday and Monday over one of the NBA's best defensive teams, the Detroit Pistons, and its best offensive team, the Suns, the Nets have shown an ability to adapt to a certain style of play, make it their own and control a game.
They are becoming defined by their ability to play at both ends of the court. Their defense has been stellar and their bench has consistently contributed.
The ingredients are there for the Nets (41-28) to make a playoff push, but the question is whether their current level of play will continue into the postseason. The team president, Rod Thorn, says it can.
"I think we've just played very solidly," Thorn said in a telephone interview yesterday. "And when you play solidly, you tend to do well. We have some talented players. If we're doing the right things on both ends of the court, then we're going to be successful over the long haul."
The Nets will get a chance to further legitimize themselves tonight when they will be host to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Frank and the Nets continue to play down their nine-game winning streak, but Thorn said he believed the league had taken notice. "Teams, now they're looking at us and saying, `Now we've got to bring our A game,"' he said.
The Nets became only the third team to win at Detroit this season, and they led by as many as 42 in what ended up to be a 38-point trouncing of the Suns. In an 82-game season, it is inevitable that there will be lopsided games like the one Monday night against Phoenix. But was that a result of the Nets' excellent play, or an off night by the Suns?
Pistons 97, Mavericks 90
Chauncey Billups scored eight of his 31 points in the final three minutes to help Detroit Pistons beat the Dallas Mavericks 97-90 on Tuesday.
Rasheed Wallace added 21 points and 10 rebounds for Detroit, while Richard Hamilton scored 14 points.
Dirk Nowitzki and former Piston Jerry Stackhouse each had 25 for Dallas.
Bucks 132, Suns 110
At Milwaukee, Charlie Bell had career highs of 19 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds for his first career triple-double, and the Bucks hit a franchise-record 18 3-pointers.
Michael Redd had 28 points as the Bucks set season highs in almost every offensive category, scoring 46 points in a blistering third-quarter 3-point assault.
Steve Nash scored 23 points after his first scoreless performance since joining the Suns against New Jersey the night before in a 110-72 loss. The Suns played without Amare Stoudemire, who went back to the bench because of pain in his knee after playing in the three games following surgery.
SuperSonics 98, Grizzlies 97
At Memphis, Tennessee, Ray Allen made an off-balance 19-footer with 0.3 seconds left, and Seattle overcame Pau Gasol's franchise-record 44 points to snap the Grizzlies' seven-game winning streak.
RSS