With Boos Raining Down, Nets Hand Bobcats First Win in 2 Weeks

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Nets are going so bad right now they made Charlotte look good.Brevin Knight scored a season-high 25 points and the Bobcats snapped an eight-game losing streak with a 91-83 vic tory last night over the struggling Nets.Charlotte was a loss from tying the longest losing streak in the NBA this season, co-owned by Atlanta and Toronto. But the Bobcats outscored the Nets 19-4 to start the third quarter and never trailed again as boos and jeers rained down on the home team from all corners of Continental Airlines Arena in the second half.Richard Jefferson scored 25 points and Vince Carter had 22 for New Jersey, which lost its third straight game and fourth in a row at home. One of the other home losses was to a 2-15 Toronto team on December 3.Knight made two plays during one key sequence in the fourth quarter that helped hold off the Nets.With Charlotte leading 70-66, he stole the ball from Jefferson on a fast break and hit a jumper at the other end to give the Bobcats a 72-66 lead with 4:32 left. Melvin Ely followed with a 3-point play to extend the lead to nine and New Jersey never got closer than six the rest of the game.Most of the tempo was provided by Knight, who had seven assists and zero turnovers. Tuesday night in a 101-85 loss to Denver, he handed out a seasonhigh 16 assists.Jumaine Jones scored 15 points off the bench and Emeka Okafor added 14 points and 13 rebounds for Charlotte, which had last won on November 26 against Washington.After the loss, Nets coach Lawrence Frank took the unusual step of not addressing his players after the game.“Sometimes you just don’t say anything,” he said.”You just bring it in and deal with it the next day.”Kidd and Carter did share their feelings.“Somethings’s got to change,” Carter said. “We’re in a slump. I think we are still a team that believes in each other. We have to decide what we want to be and who we are.The time is now.”Kidd, who didn’t take a shot in the first half when he seemed to be playing in a fog, finished shooting 3-for-9 for 8 points with 10 assists.When asked if the team was in danger of falling apart, Kidd replied, “We’ll soon find out. I hope not. I hope everybody still is confident we can turn everything around. In this league, everybody becomes fragile when things don’t go well. We’ll soon find out.”

With Boos Raining Down, Nets Hand Bobcats First Win in 2 Weeks

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