The Nets are home and I am on the road and half in the bag. I’m stationed in the milds of New Jersey. Far enough away from the city to be considered a suburb, far enough away from the beach to be considered fun, and yet far enough away from the swamps to have any character. Instead, I’m in a place that exists as a tutorial to purgatory. A patch of suburbia cut off from even the chains that suck the money out of the communities. It’s a completely isolated stretch of land that my in-laws call home. And I’m told that one day it could all be mine.

This is getting away from me. My in-laws are cool. They speak with thick Russian accents, and stuff me to the gills with smoked meats and vodka and Montepulciano. I know that popular culture had decided long ago that mother-in-laws were supposed to be drawn as bitchy shrews, and father-in-laws as humorless pricks, but really they’re just the people who raised somebody that I liked enough to marry and procreate with. Our relationship has never been adversarial, and when I asked them if they could DVR the game so that I could have enough material to deliver to you jackals, they happily agreed. And then got me loaded.

Of course now I’m in a place less claustrophobic than my cozy two bedroom apartment. I can actually hear the seconds tick off a clock to my right, located in a spot of the room where nobody would ever look to suss out the time. I have a headache, and I need to go to bed, but I have to finish this article now, because I know that I will be too busy on Saturday to actually get any of this finished.

In a way I’m more Knicks than Nets. Yes folks, the Nets have entered the win column. They beat their East River rivals in a game that went down to the final possession, and in doing so gave me hope that I wasn’t wasting my season writing this column. Which might be bad news for fans of Schadenfreude. In the back of my mind there was always the possibility that this was doomed to be a 70 loss season. That game after game, I would torture myself and would need to reach down to find the words to describe the pain one feels in following the wretched Brooklyn Nets. But to tell you the truth, I couldn’t be happier to be following the Nets as opposed to the Knicks, and just like any person who recently quit Facebook, I can’t wait to tell you why I made the switch.

Effort. The Nets look as if they actually give a shit. Yes, it was the home opener, and yes, it came against their more famous cross town rivals, so you might expect for the Nets to play with a little extra oomph. But I’ve seen the Knicks, and I’ve felt a season where the team just gave up six weeks into the schedule. I can’t fully describe it without sounding like an obnoxious “play the right way” douchebag, but the Nets actually did play the right way. Jarrett Allen remains an imposing defender down low. Joey Buckets managed a trio from beyond the arc. And with the Knick’s Kristaps Porzingis out forever with an injury, 2nd round draft pick Rodions Kurucs took it upon himself to be the single best Latvian in the building, managing 11 points in…3-8 shooting. But he went 4-4 from the free throw line. Hey, you take that from the 40th pick in the draft. And LaDriggs Jenkins nearly incited a brawl by spiking Enes Kanter to the ground.

But in watching the game, I couldn’t help but believe more and more in Caris LeVert. I know he’s on the Nets, and the Nets are supposed to be mediocre on their best days, and he does seem like too much of a nice kid to ever be truly scary, but the kid is nothing but handles. I want to watch him drive to the basket on every possession. After putting up a career high 27 in Wednesday’s loss to the Pistons, he put up 28 in the win over New York, going 8-13 from the field, and hitting 10 of 11 free throws. I don’t know how he will perform against stiffer competition, but I would remind you that there are a lot of bad teams in the Eastern Conference, and Caris looks like he can entertain on any given night. None of this is to say that his game is as sexy as it is hypnotic. I don’t know how many highlight reels he will ever qualify for, but play after play, I found myself grunting “hmm” in appreciation.

My grunting of course, drew the attention of my mother-in-law, who immediately started asking me if there were any Russians in the league. Reflexively, I answered yes, without really knowing anybody. Kirilenko had retired four seasons ago. Then there was Sabonis, who wasn’t actually Russian. And Petrović, who wasn’t actually Russian. Shit, I don’t know. It’s a big country. I’m sure there’s somebody on the Kings or something. They were distracting, but they were the kind of distracting that I don’t mind, and I write this knowing full well that they or my wife will not read this article at gunpoint.

Is there some thread to discover here? Not tonight. Not right now. I’m too damn tired. I suppose that there’s some disappointment in my not being around the energy of the fans outside the arena on their home opener. I might have liked to pay $60 or so bucks for nosebleed seats in a game where the Nets actually seemed to care about winning, and where the fans chanted “Brooklyn” with a sense of hope, but as it was, I had to go north. I only hope that they manage to retain some of the energy for when I’m back in the neighborhood. It’s a long season. Also, I have no earthly idea how I’m going to watch the game tomorrow.

The Brooklyn Nets are now 1-1 and deadlocked in a 7-way tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.