THEY are the defending champion Celtics, who can blow out better teams than the 19-22 Nets twice in three days, whose dominance yesterday would have been as easy to rationalize as Lawrence Frank's team's relative youth.
In a league where coaches survive on the mood of their best players, the easy thing for Frank would have been not to bench Vince Carter and Devin Harris. It would have been easy to acknowledge that Carter's five first-half points and Devin Harris's one first-half assist as a bad night at the office, refuse to embarrass them, and wait until the fourth quarter to empty the bench. But the little gym rat with no playing pedigree, instead benched one of the NBA's biggest stars and the Nets' rising one for the entire second half of yesterday's 105-85 loss to Boston. That Frank is the longest-tenured coach in the Eastern Conference despite just three playoff rounds won in five years is not a reflection of owner Bruce Ratner's and Rod Thorn's unrequited love, but of the NBA coaching carnage around Frank.
"You make the decision you make and they're well thought out," said the coach when asked about the potential consequences. "That's part of directing and leading a team.
"You are not there to have a consensus of opinion, you are there to do what is the best interest of the team, that's your job."
And he did it so decisively, so clearly in the best interest of the Nets, that if Carter and Harris don't positively respond, the reflection will come back on them long before Frank has to interview for his second head-coaching job.
Ultimately, the players have to play and the coach is in trouble if they don't. But, if Carter, who pouted his way out of Toronto when being the best player on a declining team became nothing he wanted to be, has matured into the leader that the Nets have insisted he has become, he will drop 30 on New Orleans Wednesday night.
And if Harris is the catalyst Thorn acquired for Jason Kidd for the rebirth of the franchise, the young point guard will duel with Chris Paul Wednesday night as if life depends on it. That's what winners do. And Carter's greetings to his teammates as they came to bench in the second half would seem to indicate he would respond positively.
Asked whether such a humiliation ever happened to him before, Carter had exactly the right answer.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It happens, so I'm OK with it.
"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have still been out there trying to help the guys and ROOT the team on. I'm not going to sit there and not cheer for my teammates.
"It's a coaching decision, you have to live with it. It's a wake-up call for us. As much as we have some young guys we have some veteran guys who know that it takes to get back on track. It's all about staying positive. It's easy to bring guys along to understand that.
"We're definitely a capable team, we've shown that. We are going to hit our slumps and our goal is to not let them compound and hopefully we can do that. One thing I can say is that Brook (Lopez) has been playing phenomenal Basketball. As a team we'll be fine."
It is about the team, but that's just another way of saying that it's really about where the star's head is for the team. Harris, younger, more tight-lipped about the benching except to acknowledge the Nets' terrible first half and Frank's halftime vein-popping, will take his lead from Carter.
Yesterday his cues seemed good. But the proof always is in the results.
