Coming soon: sleepovers with spooky ghost stories.
There’s not much else for the Nets to try — except maybe some endgame execution and a sledgehammer against guys like Kobe Bryant — to right their rapidly sinking ship.
After the Nets sleepwalked through two earlier Sunday afternoon games, coach Avery Johnson brought them in early yesterday morning to watch film, have breakfast and walk through plays.
Did it make a difference against the Lakers yesterday afternoon?
“Kobe Bryant, that’s the difference. They throw him the ball and he just made some plays,” said Johnson. “At the end of the day, it was just Kobe Bryant.”
So proving you have to get up extra early to beat him, or maybe have that sleepover, Bryant scored 14 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter and the Nets, missing 11-of-12 shots after forcing a tie with just under 5:00 left, lost their seventh straight game as the Lakers took a 99-92 decision in Newark.
Once again, the Nets (6-18) hung around. And lost. Bryant closed the deal for the Lakers (17-7), showing the Nets how much they need a star-power stud.
“They have a lot of players that do the same thing,” Bryant said. “In rebuilding, you have to put pieces of the puzzle together and find pieces that mix and match and fix. You need versatility. We have players that do different things so the pieces fit extremely well together.”
And as far as yesterday was concerned, the endgame showed that.
“They executed, we didn’t. We missed a ton of shots at the rim, shots we normally make and they just didn’t go down,” said Devin Harris (16 points, 10 assists), who played, as promised, despite spraining his left shoulder Thursday in Dallas. “They executed and got good looks at the basket late.”
Bryant, a pedestrian seven-point scorer and 1-of-6 shooter in the first half, was in on most of the Lakers’ execution and good looks.
At the other end, two of the looks the Nets botched were short in-the-lane runners by Harris, shots he normally makes in his sleep.
“They were right there,” Brook Lopez (25 points, 9 rebounds) said of Harris’ misfires.
After Harris pulled the Nets into a tie at 87 with an eight-foot floater, at 2:44, Pau Gasol (15 points, 11 rebounds) made 1-of-2 at the line. Harris missed his first. Bryant drove and fed Gasol. Lakers up three. Harris missed his second. Kobe drove and fed Lamar Odom (22 points). Lakers up five. The Nets called time.
Kobe stole from Lopez and Odom banged in a 3-pointer with :42.2 seconds left. Lakers up eight. Game.
“We were just reading the defense and making the right play,” said Bryant, who darn near single-handedly put the game away in the third quarter when, after the Nets closed within one, he scored nine points and assisted two more in a 13-4 run that put L.A. up 10. “Guys weren’t standing around and watching. They were cutting without the ball.”
Quinton Ross, making his first start for the Nets in place of Damion James (broken foot), did a commendable job at times on Bryant. But Kobe was Kobe.
“He’s a great closer,” Johnson said. “I can’t get down on our guys. Our personnel is what it is.”
And the Nets endured another close-but-no-win scenario.
“This is the type of effort I’m used to seeing. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like consolation prizes. Do not like coming in second, but I like maximum effort,” Johnson stressed. “We’re not ready to close these type of games yet. Hopefully, we’ll get there one day.”