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Signs of Life

Authored by Matthew McQueeny - April 28, 2005 - 11:29 pm

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The New Jersey Nets lost a tough one last night to the Miami Heat. They are now down 3-0 in this best of seven series. More than the impending doom of that fact, though, is that the Nets showed their fans some signs of life. They came out and wanted this game. They pushed the Heat to the limits. Jason Kidd and Vince Carter nearly both ended up with triple-doubles, which would have been the first time such an event happened in the playoffs. Richard Jefferson showed you what you have missed over the past four months and why he is a star in this league. Nenad Krstic has shown that with a good strength training regimen where he adds twenty pounds to his frame he can be a major difference maker. With a reshuffling of the role players around those four players the Nets will be an upper echelon team again. The encouraging aspect of last night’s game against the Heat is that the will to win has not left the core guys. As long as you combine that will to win with this kind of talent, the next couple of years will be fine for New Jersey.

The Nets will head into Sunday’s nationally televised game hoping to extend their season and make another trip to Miami. The way the Heat have played though, taking on the Nets best punch and still beating them, makes it unlikely that there will be a game beyond the fourth. Shaq will see that with a win he can give his balky thigh a week off as Washington and Chicago duke it out for the right to play the Heat. The Nets will still give everything they have but subconsciously, until they win a game, they are going to feel beaten before the game even starts. Miami has now beaten the Nets all six times the two have played this year. A year which started on opening night with Alonzo Mourning as a Net guarding Shaquille O’Neal and last night saw Alonzo preening like a WCW wrestler and hugging Shaq as a Miami player.

Last night’s game legitimized the Net’s season. If they had bowed out in this series the way they lost the first two games, there would have been a bad taste in the organization’s mouth about the end of the season. You can build into the next season with an effort like the one you got in game three. The only worry you had before they got Vince was that it was pointless to have Jason Kidd here if they were rebuilding. I had been a little iffy about Jason Kidd being 32 and only getting older. But, with the team that is being built around him, I am con-Vince-d he can play and be a force until at least 35. His game has never been one of quickness and first steps. His game is one of intelligence, conditioning, stamina, and brilliant passing. Having wing players like Vince and RJ will make Jkidd’s aging process a lot less noticeable. They will only accentuate his positives and compensate for the certain concessions of age. It is all these things that make the impact of this 3-0 hole a lot easier to take. Plus, even for the remainder of this series, there is always the Red Sox.