Paul Pierce Critical of Brooklyn Nets Coaches for Not Making Adjustments

The unravelling Brooklyn Nets aren’t just embarrassed, they’re also starting to point fingers. Paul Pierce threw the coaching staff under the bus after the Nets dropped their 5th game in a row on Sunday. Per the NY Daily News: “Jason Kidd, who watched his 3-10 squad crumble in the third quarter (again) and fall for the eighth time in nine games, sent a message by benching his entire starting lineup at the beginning of the fourth quarter. But after the Nets got blown out in another third quarter, Kidd got a message back with Paul Pierce seemingly blaming the rookie coach for the team’s struggles after halftime. ‘We got to understand teams aren’t going to play the same way they did in the first half as they did in the second half because teams make adjustments, especially when they are down,’ Pierce said. ‘And we got to realize that and adjust with that.’ On Sunday, the Nets lost the third quarter, 34-15, which means they’ve been outscored by a combined 96 points in the third quarters of their 10 losses. Maybe Kidd needs to work on those halftime speeches. ‘We’ve got to be the worst team in the league when it comes to third quarters,’ said Kevin Garnett. ‘Unacceptable.’ As for the play of the Kidd’s high-priced starters, Kidd said he should have kept Garnett and Pierce on the bench, leaving in Mason Plumlee, Alan Anderson, Tyshawn Taylor, Mirza Teletovic and Tornike Shengelia. (For the casual fans, yes, those are all Nets.) ‘They deserved to play. I should have let them play the whole game or the whole quarter,’ Kidd said after wrapping up a long meeting with GM Billy King and his two assistant GMs, which they conducted in the hallways of the locker room area. ‘They’re playing, you know, for one another. It’s not perfect but that group that gave us an opportunity by cutting it to eight.'”