Once again we play a team we just faced a couple days ago. I won't redo the whole preview but you can find it here.
In a nutshell the Nets are a fairly complete team with experienced players. We'll need to outhustle them like we did Saturday in order to have a chance. We need to see five guys going for rebounds, alert defense with quick help, lots of points scored off of turnovers, and heady ball movement like we had in the first half against San Antonio. I imagine we'll try to repeat our lockdown on Vince Carter, which is a solid strategy. Jason Kidd is not as effective when he's the primary scorer. Nenad Krstic probably can't handle the load himself. The problem is they'll have Richard Jefferson back from injury which puts more pressure on our defense. Still it'll be better to have him try to beat us than VC.
If the Blazers had pretensions of being really good this would be another yardstick game. The Nets will be none too pleased about the drubbing Saturday night, nor about falling in Seattle afterwards. They should come out loaded for bear. We'd need a lot of poise and some old-fashioned guts to win. As much as I like the direction we're going, I don't think we're there yet. We're too young and too undermanned because of injuries. I hope I'm wrong, or at least I hope it's a hard-fought contest. We didn't sweep a single season series last year except for the Hawks. Standing up to the big bully Nets would be a fantastic morale boost to start this season.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)