NET NOTES
NEW ORLEANS – Vince Carter vowed he would shoot better than the previous night when a bruised right index finger and hand led to a 4-of-18 nightmare. Well, he was better. By a little.
Carter, after a strong start, missed eight of his last nine shots to finish 8-for-25. Carter admitted the hand stiffened up on him but was not nearly as bad as the previous night.
“It was all right,” said Carter, who scored 24 in the Nets’ 86-85 victory over New Orleans. “In the second half, it got a little stiff. My goal was to try to get to the basket and, after a while, it started to bother me.”
Nets injury bug continues. While Carter played with the sore hand, Cliff Robinson tested his aching lower back and forward Jabari Smith sat with what is believed to be right knee tendinitis, a condition that troubled him for several days but flared up on Tuesday.
“Tendinitis, that’s what I’m hoping,” said Smith, who will go for an MRI today in Miami.
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Byron Scott said it again, for about the bazillionth time. There is no animosity toward Jason Kidd.
“I thought we put an end to that a long time ago. He’s in New Jersey. He’s with the team he signed with and I’m with the team I’m here with,” Scott said. “I’m enjoying my life. Hopefully, he’s enjoying his life. We’re both after the same thing. He’s after a championship as a player. I’m after a championship as a coach. I have no hard feelings or ill will toward Jason Kidd whatsoever.”
Kidd was widely viewed as the mastermind behind Scott’s dismissal last season. The only thing Scott ever said in a negative vein was “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” but he seems to have moved on from his Nets days.
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Last seven Net defeats all have come by double-digits. Last sub-10 point defeat was 104-103 overtime loss to Lakers. Since then, Nets’ seven defeats have been by 16.7 points.
“You are alarmed anytime you lose,” said coach Lawrence Frank. “The Toronto and Milwaukee game, that was very alarming not only because of the disparity but the way that we played. The game against Miami, give Miami some credit. [San Antonio] was a little bit different.
“When you view the tape and see the shots and quality of shots we had . . . and we shoot 19 percent. We are just going through a little bit of a funk right now.”
