Watching the game last night, the Nets just seemed to turn up the defense in the fourth quarter...they were up in guys faces, wrestling away offensive boards, chasing down loose balls, grabbing Raptors before they could dunk (except for the one by Joey Graham). Guys showing it last night were Hassell, Anderson and Lopez. Question is, where is that on a consistent, night in, night out, quarter by quarter basis? When it happens, we hold teams to manageable scores. The team feeds off the energy and it is contagious. IMO, we see it consistently from Hayes, maybe Dooling. Most of the time from Anderson. I see it sometimes when we go into zone defense (but not always). What about the other guys? It is part of the recipe, the formula for Nets success. How do we get more of THAT out of this team?
Part 2: Here is a clip from a Utah paper about Jerry Sloan, talking about the need to show effort and aggressiveness: Jazz coach Jerry Sloan pulled C.J. Miles for Ronnie Price only 4:53 into the third quarter Monday after giving up a three-point play to Boston's Ray Allen. He had stern words Tuesday when asked about Miles' recent play. "He seems to not have the energy to compete," Sloan said. "That's hard for me to understand why, unless he's sick or hurt or something. You learn how to compete and give yourself a chance to get better. "Guys go through stages where they don't have a lot of things happen for them, but rebounding and defense is always there. That's something that shouldn't just completely abandon you." This feels like a winning attitude and approach that we could use...and has been proven in Sloan's 20 years as a head coach.
