Kenyon sweeps pixie Knicks dust off the MSG parquet
Nets 100, Knicks 94
Round 1
Game 4
File
Kenyon Martin caps a brilliant series
by scoring a career-high 36 points. Tight, but dull throughout, the Knicks
only made a run while Kenyon was resting in the 4th (where Martin scored
13 points). Martin double-doubled for the 4th time in as many games. The
Knicks tried to grab a Game 5 by going long, but came up with air (Marbury
scored 31 points, but shot 11 - 26).
• Box
Score
Series Record: Nets win 4 - 0.
Nets High Men:
• Points: Kenyon
Martin, 36 (career high).
• Assists: Jason
Kidd, 7.
• Rebounds: Kenyon
Martin, 13.
• Steals: Lucious
Harris, 2.
• Turnovers: Jason
Kidd, 4.
• Blocks: Kittles,
Martin, and Williams
each had 1.
• FG Percentage: Kenyon
Martin, 68.4% (13 - 19).
Nets Team Stats:
• FG Percentage: 46.6%
• FT Percentage: 75.6%
• Rebounds: 43
• Rebound Differential: +6
• Turnovers: 14
• Opponent's Turnovers: 11
• Bench
points: 17
•
Bench points Differential: -8
• Steals:
6
• Blocks:
3
•
Points in the Paint: 44
• Double-Doubles:
1 (Kenyon Martin, 36 points, 13 rebounds).
• Triple-Doubles:
0
The Kidd Effect:
• Nets Players in Double Digit Scoring:
4
• Nets Fast Break Points: 10
• Kidd's FG Percentage: 50%
(5 - 10).
• Scoring
Differential Kidd in the game: +6
• Scoring
Differential Kidd out (Lucious Harris at PG): even
• Double-Doubles
this Season: 25
• Triple
Doubles this Season: 9
• Career
Triple Doubles: 59
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Kenyon and the Klosers
Paradoxically, this was both the tightest and the dullest game of the Bridge and Tunnel series – although it was knotted up almost entirely throughout, fast breaking hardly occurred (13 total combined fast break points for both teams), and with so many foul shots (71 combined), it just seemed to drag on forever (2 hours and 45 minutes).
Unmotivated – that's how the Nets looked early. The Knicks just were never a challenge, so our boys figured they could sleepwalk their way to a sweep. That wasn't exactly the case. When the Knicks rose up, as they did with Martin on the bench in the fourth quarter, the Nets relished the chance to swat them off to their early vacations, as if happy for a chance to display their power. While Kenyon rested, a flurry of 3 pointers by Stephon Marbury and feisty Frank Williams gave the Knicks a their biggest lead, 6 points, with about 6 1/2 minutes to go.
Enter Martin. And up with badly considered 3-ball jacks by Marbury, who, as we know, has a crush on the long ball. While Marbury aired it out, the Nets probed the Knicks' soft white underbelly, to great effect. Martin sunk his deadly hooks, A-Train made a beautiful put-back, and NJ's relentless attacking kept sending them to the line (and fouling Vin Baker out of his most effective game). Before you knew it, the Nets were up by 5 with a minute left. When the Knicks lobbed an inbounds to Nazr Mohammed for a slam, they were only down by 2 with 13.3 seconds left – but Knicks fouls on Lucious Harris proved fruitless. Marbury had to loft one more ill-advised 3-ball toss between Harris' closing free-throws, and the Knickies were done.
To crown an incredible series in which he double-doubled in every game, Kenyon Martin scored a career-high 36 points (13 of which came in the 4th), impervious to the wildly inaccurate chants of "Kenyon sucks!" that rose up from the undereducated Garden crowd.
Kenyon and his Klosers got in the Knickies' cluttered minds, and swept it clean of any shred of dignity.
Tri-State Triumph
Captain Hook - Yargh! What a series – and what a game – from Kenyon Martin, its clear-cut MVP. The jump hook, a beautiful weapon in Kenyon's arsenal, was in heavy use tonight. Martin made some phenomenal hooks on the run, across the lane, in the face of the Knicks' weak D. There wasn't an 'oop for the Nets to be found tonight, but Martin still managed to shoot slightly better than 68%. His 36 points were a career high, a trophy to add to his 16 career playoff high rebounds in Game 2. From the end of the 3rd into the 4th, Martin scored all 10 of the Nets points. Defensively, he held Kurt "Psycho Eyes" Thomas to 1 point in the second half, and shook his head ominously at Frank Williams when he suddenly found himself guarding him on the perimeter. Martin even hit his free-throws, going 10 - 13 from the stripe. A total game, a total series, from the Nets' emotional leader.
Spark But No Flame - What a heavy-lidded, dull-brained crew this Knicks team turned out to be. Only Frank Williams had anything like what you'd call a "fire." He tangoed briefly with Jefferson in the 3rd, getting into a bit of a shoving match with him, and both got t'd.
Aaron's On It, Loosh as a Goose - A-Train and Harris only scored 4 points a piece, but ever one of them was critical, in the waning moments of the 4th. A-Train's biggest was a put-back of a missed RJ long-ball, to put the Nets up by 3 with about 2 minutes left, and Harris hit all four of his game-ending free-throws.
Garden Variety
Weird to want to push away from the table during Game 4 of a Knicks/Nets playoff series, but these Knicks are like one of those salads you put together under the sneeze guard in one of NYC's infamously overrated delis. Who knows WHAT is in those chick peas, under the piles of baby corn ears, or how old that lettuce is. And when you take it to the counter it weighs more than it looks, and costs you about $10. Ennui overtook the Nets in the face of such a badly put-together team, but it didn't sink them, thank goodness – while Kidd played well, he still looks like he could use some rest. And let's bless the Nets' consumer advocate Kenyon Martin, who did the decent thing and closed the Styrofoam lid on the "fugazy" Knicks assemblage and threw it in the trash.
- Champagne
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