Three thoughts on the Nets' 114-109 win over the Raptors in Brooklyn Friday night:
1. For ownership, the front office and fans, the chief rival for the Nets is probably the Knicks. But for the players on the court, it seems pretty clear that the team the Nets most love to play, and most get up for, is the Raptors.
If last year's epic playoff series with Toronto wasn't enough to prove that, one the Nets escaped from with a win in seven thrilling games in what was arguably the best series of the entire postseason (at least from a dramatic standpoint), then you shouldn't need any more evidence than Friday's showdown in Brooklyn, one the Nets desperately needed to continue their playoff push and one the Raptors would have undoubtedly loved to have get in order to help prevent them from doing so.
Friday's game was probably the most fun Nets game of the entire year, with incredible shot making by Lou Williams and DeMar DeRozan for Toronto – particularly in the fourth quarter – being matched by excellent offense by the Nets on one trip after another, as they repeatedly got wide open shots and kept knocking them down.
You even have the large and vocal Raptors fan base that made its presence felt at times during Friday's game with "Let's Go Raptors!" chants, matched by the home crowd getting as into the game as it has all season with every shot the Nets made in the fourth quarter (and they made a lot of them).
There's no question that Toronto has no bigger rival than the Nets at this point, after everything the Raptors said about the Nets a year ago, plus the residual frustration at losing to the Nets in the postseason, and that animosity has made for one thrilling game after another this season, with all four games between these two teams having been close late (three of them were within four points entering the fourth quarter, and the other went to overtime).
As has been written in this space time and again over the past few years: you make rivalries on the court, not in the media. The Nets and Raptors have turned their matchups the past two seasons into the biggest rivalry for both teams, and it's been very fun to follow along and witness from up close.
In short, it's just very disappointing that there's almost no chance of a Nets-Raptors rematch in the first round of this year's playoffs, because it would be incredibly compelling, and would almost certainly last another six or seven games.
2. Thaddeus Young made the biggest play of Friday night's game, snaking past Patrick Patterson to put back Brook Lopez's attempted tip-in of Deron Williams' floater in the lane with 22 seconds to go to give the Nets the lead for good, then managed to grab a crucial rebound of DeRozan's potential game-tying shot with 11 seconds left.
Here's a fascinating answer from Young postgame about how he manages to get his hands on key rebounds and loose balls like those:
"I just try to anticipate and just sniff out the ball," Young said. "Try to see the next move or the next play before the other guys. It's pretty simple stuff … if they go into a screen-and-roll, one big is going to roll, one big is going to duck in. If you see Brook on his man, then you just stay with yours.
"You're playing in between the two. You just sniff out the bounce pass that's going to the bigs and stuff like that, or you just try to bait him in and make him throw the ball where you want him to throw it.
"They're not knowing it, but you know it. I think that's one of the things I'm kind of good at, just playing off guys, taking away one pass and making them throw a difficult pass to another player and making that player, at the end of the shot clock, take tough shots."
3. You have to give Nets coach Lionel Hollins credit for how he handled the second half of this game. The Nets needed this game desperately, given their next three games are on the road against the Hawks and then back home against the Trail Blazers and Hawks again – three games that, at least on paper, look like sure losses.
And Hollins played this game like it was that important, going with Williams and Brook Lopez for the entire second half, leaving Jarrett Jack and Mason Plumlee on the bench for all of it. Hollins said he wasn't comfortable with his bench unit after a rough second quarter, and came out of the halftime break thinking he would need to ride his starters to try and get a win – certainly the right decision after Jack, in particular (0-for-4 from the field and was minus-11 in 9:42) was less than impressive in the first half.
It was a win the Nets desperately needed to get, and they got it in part because of how Hollins managed his team over the final 24 minutes.
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