MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Jarrett Jack tried to put a positive spin on the Nets’ third straight loss to open the season, a 101-91 defeat to the Grizzlies on Saturday night in front of 16,013 at FedEx Forum.
“Clearly, we’re not overreacting,” Jack said. “We’re three games into a very, very long season, and we’ve got to be ready to bounce back Monday.”
The fact is, it could be a very, very long season in Brooklyn.
The Nets play hard for coach Lionel Hollins, and managed to hang around against the Grizzlies despite losing Brook Lopez for most of the first half with foul trouble and being outscored by 12 points from the free-throw line and by 18 from 3-point range.
But it also never felt like the Nets were the team that was going to come out on top. Instead, the game slowly bled away. The Nets never led again after Lopez scored the opening basket and they spent the entire final three quarters trailing by between five and 16 points. That kept the score close enough to avoid a blowout, but also never close enough to truly feel like they had a chance to win.
“I think everybody is pretty much frustrated at this point,” said Joe Johnson, who had 11 points after being listed as questionable to play with a bruise on his right hand suffered during the second half of Friday’s blowout loss in San Antonio. “But we have to keep working, keep pulling at them, and just keep going hard on both ends of the floor. … It’ll come together.”
It’s hard to envision the Nets not continuing to play hard. But it’s also hard to envision how things are going to come together quickly enough for them to avoid falling into a massive hole during the brutal opening month of their season.
Having already lost three in a row to start the season against playoff teams from a year ago, the Nets now will face nine more in 14 games in November — and that doesn’t count Oklahoma City, which likely will be in the postseason this year barring a second straight season full of catastrophic injuries.
That stretch won’t allow the Nets to take any time to figure out their issues, specifically on offense. They have struggled to make shots, going 8-for-38 on 3-pointers through three gamesand lacking the creator necessary to break down the defense to get things going.
Jack led the team in shots for the second game in a row, finishing with 15 points on 7-for-17 shooting, with nine assists to just two turnovers in 35 minutes. Lopez, on the other hand, never seemed to get into the game after picking up three fouls in the first nine minutes, and had 12 points and 10 rebounds in 28 minutes.
Memphis used the Grit ‘N’ Grind style it perfected under Hollins to batter the Nets into submission, wearing them down with one post-up after another for Zach Randolph (15 points, 13 rebounds) — including one with 40.3 seconds left to push the Grizzlies’ lead to eight and officially stamp out any hopes the Nets had for a comeback.
“It’d be nice to come back here and be undefeated and be the favorite,” Hollins said with a smile before the game. “It’s nice to come back to Memphis and see all the people I’ve known, but it’s more fun to be competitive and win.”
The time when Hollins will have a roster that’s ready to compete with a team like the Grizzlies seems months away — specifically next July, when the Nets will have at least $40 million in cap space to go out and chase free agents to remake the roster around Lopez and Thaddeus Young.
There are 79 games left to play until then. It could be a very, very long season.