Early Blowout Loss A Dark Omen for the Nets

We're three game into the season and the Nets are 2–1, so all is well and good in the Swamp …. right?

Not so fast. While the two wins were nice enough — an overtime win at home over Eastern Conference favorite Chicago and a road win over a rebuilding Philadelphia team — the one loss was a doozy: On Saturday, the Nets were humiliated in the Meadowlands by Toronto, 106–69.

It's incredibly rare to see an NBA team suffer such a savage beating on its home floor, and when that team is both reasonably healthy and aspiring to be a playoff contender, it's an absolutely shocking result.

Unfortunately, the 37-point smackdown may be far more telling than the Nets' other two games. Win-loss records early in the season can be misleading, because a few lucky plays in close games can greatly influence our perception of a team's success (swing the OT game against Chicago, for instance, and we'd think the Nets were off to a much worse start).

Instead, the thing I always look out for early in the season is blowout wins and losses. The classic example from last year, of course, was Miami's 42-point home loss to Chicago in the season opener. That was a red flag right away that the Heat were in no condition to defend their title, something they set about proving the rest of the season.

Similarly, New Jersey's defeat on Saturday is just as worrisome. Teams don't lose home games by 37 points and then go on to great things. Usually, they don't even go on to good things.

Don't believe me? Try finding the last team to lose a home game by 37 and finish with more than 50 wins. Last year, seven teams won 50 games; none lost at home by more than 22 points until the final week of the season, when Utah and San Antonio had blowout losses while resting their starters. It was a similar case the year before — none of the league's six 50-win teams lost a home game by more than 24 points.

That's why Miami's loss was such a red flag last season, and why New Jersey's is so troubling this year. Simply put, if you start with the fact that a team lost by 37 at home and then try to determine the odds that they were a winning team, you'll end up with a fairly miniscule probability.

"Miniscule" isn't the same as "nonexistent" I should add, and there's at least one recent example where the Nets defied the odds on this. On January 9, 2003, the Nets were beaten by Sacramento at the Meadowlands 118–82. Despite the defeat, they went on to the NBA Finals and made the Spurs sweat out six tough games before finally succumbing.

But those outcomes are very much the exception. Additionally, I should point out the opponent on that night nearly half a decade ago was a bit different too. The Kings of Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, and Mike Bibby were favored to win the championship that year, right up to the point where Webber tore up his knee in the second round of the playoffs. Maybe you didn't like losing to the Kings by 36, but you could understand how it happened.

The Raptors, meanwhile, are a nice team … but the same gang the Nets dismissed in the first round of the playoffs a year ago. Yet they thoroughly dismantled a healthy New Jersey team on its own court. No matter how rose-colored your glasses, this is unsettling.

What's particularly troubling about that 106–69 beating is the "69" part of the ledger, and that's where I want to make another point. The Nets commonly refer to themselves as a team with two All-Stars, and that's pretty much true. But when it comes to scoring, it isn't. The Nets are Vince Carter and a string of rosary beads, and when he has a night like he did against the Raptors — 2-for-7, six points — nobody is around to pick up the slack. That's why the Nets went 7–19 when he was held under 20 points last season.

And a big reason is because the Nets' other All-Star never shoots. This doesn't get a lot of attention because Jason Kidd is such a brilliant passer and contributes on so many other levels, but you can't help but wonder if the team would be better served if he got a little more greedy offensively. Right now he's expending a lot of energy setting up shots for guys who can't make them, while his own attempts have declined precipitously.

In 2002–03, the last time the Nets got beyond the second round of the playoffs, Kidd had 15.6 fieldgoal attempts and 5.0 free-throw attempts per game. Last season, in nearly identical minutes, Kidd averaged 11.4 field-goal attempts and just 2.9 free-throw attempts per game.

This year he's become even more reluctant to shoot. We could write if off when he was passing up shots while playing for Team USA this summer, because he was setting up players who clearly were more dangerous scorers. But since the season started, he's been doing the same thing. Kidd only took four shots in the Toronto game and has tried just 21 on the season. He also has only six free-throw attempts this year.

Even when he posts up against smaller guards, Kidd hardly ever looks to score anymore — he just tries to draw a double-team and dish it out. The irony, of course, is that teams no longer need to double-team Kidd down there, because they know darn well that he's not looking to shoot the ball. So it's a bit of a vicious cycle — the paradox being that the way to put Kidd's fearsome passing skills to greatest effect is for him to pass the ball less, so that teams regard him as a shooting threat.

More important, it's what the Nets need. Kidd's unselfishness is to be admired, but it's a poor trade-off to swap a shot by Kidd for one by Malik Allen or Jamaal Magloire. And on the nights Carter is struggling, it might help the Nets make things a little more respectable instead of losing by 37.

jhollinger@nysun.com