--It might have seemed like an isolated incident at the time, but a hideously dangerous trend that plagued the Nets all season surfaced in just the second game. After playing Toronto to a 21-21 first quarter tie, the Nets were belted by a 35-20 second quarter. How did they respond? By being outscored 50-28 in the second half to suffer their worst beating of the season, 106-69. The Nets' "glass jaw" made its first significant appearance.
"Yeah, too many times that happened and I don't have an answer for it. I wish I did," said Bostjan Nachbar. "It was just toward the end of the season, throughout the whole season it (happened), where we'd play well for 35 minutes, and they'd deliver a punch and we wouldn't respond to it. That was one of our weaknesses throughout the whole season." --Lawrence Frank suffered through the worst season of his four-and-a-half season career. Some publicly called for his head. But team president Rod Thorn, repeatedly stood by Frank and deflected all suggestions of a dismissal.
"He's not the one missing shots," Thorn said on one occasion.
Still, Frank could be on a short leash next season, despite the $8-plus million, two-year extension he signed last summer.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "We're disappointed because we feel we were talented enough to finish the season off better than we did so there was disappointment. But we feel with some time together we'll be better than what we've shown." -- F Richard Jefferson, on the disappointment of being eliminated from the playoffs while maintaining that with a training camp together, the revamped Nets can be significantly improved.
