Recap: Nets 98, Cavs 94 (Or, Misery loves repetition)
2011-03-23Overview: The New Jersey nets were able to pull of an overtime win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. All five Nets starters scored in double-digits, and J.J. Hickson had 17 and 17 for the Cavaliers.
Why yes, we did just lose a home game to a team that shot 34% bullets:
Well, the defense was decent enough. That will happen when your opponent’s offense is being initiated by Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic, and Travis Outlaw, but I’ll take it.
The offense was terrible. Too much Ramon Sessions driving with no intention of dishing. Too much Samardo Samuels forcing shots from the low post. Too much J.J. Hickson floating around the perimeter. No quality sets, no quality movement, no quality looks.
The late-game execution was non-existent. Ryan Hollins fouled every carbon-based life form in sight over the final stretch of the game, including some completely unnecessary loose-ball fouls when the Nets were in the bonus. And he couldn’t stop Brook Lopez from tipping in his own miss to tie the game with four seconds left. Ryan Hollins has the basketball IQ of a feather-tail possum. It is a little-known fact that feather-tail possums have the lowest basketball IQs of the entire possum family.
There were no offensive bright spots in this game. There was no one player who showed that he could consistently create good opportunities for himself or his teammates. Another miserable loss. 12 games left to go.
The Cavs just can’t catch a break! Hopefully they get the number 1 draft pick, so they can basically restart their franchise.
@the Nupe. Two quick things. One, it would not shock me if someone said 2/3 of our team have low basketball IQ. Two, playing Erden and Hollins together, although quite tall, would produce probably the worst front court duo in the shot clock era. No, you can’t teach size, but you also can’t teach talent, and size is a poor substitute. That being said, I don’t think Hollins is as complete a waste of space as most people. Gym+hard work could turn him into a “serviceable” bench center for energy. Working with Andy will help in that way as well.… Read more »
It’s easy to bash Hollins, but I do like about level of energy and effort. You may not get many quality minutes out of him, but he brings 100% everyminute he’s on the court and you can’t teach size. I’d love to see him spend the entire summer in the weight room and when not there spend some time with Hakeem to learn foot work in the post. Then some time with – well anybody – to learn how to rebound. It’s rare to find a combination of such size and athleticism in a center and since we’ll be stuck… Read more »
For what it’s worth, referring to negative wins produced as losses produced in probably not correct in the context of that measurement.
The basic idea is if the Cavs replaced Hollins’ minutes with someone who produced zero wins, they would be 2 wins better this year.
Obviously this isn’t perfect but it’s an “advanced” stat that helps quantify how badly Hollins plays.
Sometimes I visit Dave Berri’s wages of wins site and check his “wins produced” numbers. When the Cavs traded for Sessions and Hollins, I noted that Hollins was the worst producer of wins (biggest producer of losses?) in the NBA in 2009 – 2010. He “produced” something like -3.3 wins last year.
Based on this calculations, this year has been an improvement for Hollins. He has only produced 2.2 losses (-2.2 wins). And he has been overtaken for the worst win producer in the NBA. He is second to last this year.
Congratulations Mr. Hollins!!
I’m running out of ways to describe ow bad Ryan Hollins is. I’ll give him props on looking like quite possibly the most annoying player to post up in the entire league. He literally runs around like a chicken with its head cut off at times. He should be playing volleyball, for real.
Funny the one good stat line we had this year was that we were “unbeatable” in overtime and that was just broken by the nets WITHOUT Deron Williams