After 2

            I’ve watched two Net playoff games and I’m still in a good mental state to tell the world about it. Brooklyn went on the road and did what the book says you’re supposed to do and split on the road.  Now they head home with a chance to protect home court and take a 3-1 series lead. Now I’ll take a look at some things I’ve noticed throughout the first two games.

Kidd’s Rotations

            I am a big supporter of Jason Kidd, but his rotations in this series have been questionable. His 6th man in this series has been Alan Anderson and that hasn’t worked out. Anderson is a -14 in the series, he can make good plays at times but his problem is after he does a good job he finds his inner Andray Blatche and does something moronic. Anderson was signed to be the fifteenth man on this roster at the beginning of the season but now in the playoffs he is Brooklyn’s 6^th man. Now if you follow me on twitter (@threwthenet) you know I think Andrei Kirilenko should be getting more minutes, and in game two he showed why. He was a -4 for last night which might as well be +10 the way the Nets bench is playing in this series. But Ak-47 does so many little things last night he gave the Nets two extra positions. If the Nets went on to win that game, him diving for that rebound would have been the play of the game. That is all forgotten now because the Nets lost. Now I am all into numbers so I have to bring up a stat that refutes my point about play AK-47 more. When AK plays against the Raptors, the Nets are 0-3 and when he sits Brooklyn is 3-0. Now if you look into this stat it isn’t AK-47’s fault.  The one loss was the second night of a back to back and the Nets were gassed. The second loss the Nets had the game won but Deron Williams crumbled in the clutch like usual and threw an inbound pass away to the Raptors and lost the Nets the game. If I am Kidd, I’m playing AK-47 more and Alan Anderson less. Another Net who needs less playing time is Mirza Teletovic. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some Mirza, but his defense has been very bad so far. In result when he’s on the floor, the Nets are getting outscored by 23 points. Now Kidd doesn’t have to take Mirza out of the rotation because you need his three point shot. However, he needs to maybe take a few minutes away. Another player that must be gone in the rotation is Andray Blatche. He cannot be trusted in a playoff series and he should not be playing 8 minutes a game. Jason Kidd needs to extend Kevin Garnett’s minutes.KG has played 39mins in two games, I mean what is he saving him for? The Nets defense was seven points better with him on the floor during the regular season and in order to get to the next round you need to win games.  Having KG play 20minutes a game isn’t going to help the Nets win. Thank god for Twitter! As I am writing this Max Weisberg of the Brooklyn game just tweeted that the Nets have outscored Toronto 87-73 with KG on the court and have been outscored 114-99 with KG on the bench. #FREEKG.

Raptors Bench

            In this series Toronto’s bench has outscored Brooklyn’s bench 52-46. Okay, I thought this number would be higher but Toronto’s bench has been better and in game two Dwayne Casey only used 3 bench players which is something Jason Kidd should look into. The playoffs aren’t for a ten man rotation. Kidd should cut it to nine and nail Blatche to the bench. (I can’t wait for Blatche and Anderson to a combine 40 points in one of the games at Barclays)

Raptors Line-up

            The Raptors found their best line-up in this series. I was hoping Dwayne Casey wouldn’t realize it but he did and finished game two with it. The Lowry-Vasquez-DeRozan-Patterson-Valanciunas lineup is the lineup Casey should finish and start with. The Nets have had a hard time stop Valanciunas in this series because of his size. Greivis Vasquez has been the best point guard in this series and I cannot believe I just said that. He’s outplayed D-Will and Lowry and is hitting so many tough shots in the paint. He is a big problem on the pick and roll for the Nets. Patterson has been the biggest problem for the Nets all year on the Raptors. In the season he was plus +75 vs Brooklyn but in the series he’s only a +6. He creates a problem because he stretches the floor and he makes the Nets think twice about doubling teaming Valanciunas in the post.

Nets shooting woes

            In the first two games Brooklyn is shooting 43%.  That won’t get it done. The Nets are getting good looks but just aren’t sinking the shots. So far Deron Williams is shooting 13/35 37%. I said in the preview the Nets will go as far as D-will takes them. If he continues to play like this Brooklyn will be heading home. Brooklyn itself cannot find their shot at some point in this the Nets will heat up (I hope).

For everything Nets and NBA follow @threwthenet on twitter