The Brooklyn Nets, the other New York City NBA team spent the offseason with a lot of swagger. They brought that to their practice game.

The NBA is only in its preseason stage, yet coaches and players are taking games seriously. In their last game against the Detroit Pistons, the Nets gave up 50 points in the paint. That figure pretty much ensures a loss for the team. Indeed, they ended up with a 99-88 loss.

The defense was listless, and the home crowd was disappointed as summer line-up changes brought about lofty expectations for the team. The Detroit Pistons were a lottery team last year, and for a team that hopes to contend, this was not a very encouraging indicator.

Thus, when emotions ran high in practice, Jason Kidd looked on the bright side. From an interview with the Wall Street Journal: "This team is put together to compete at a high level and you saw that," Kidd said of the scuffle, which occurred during the open-media portion of Sunday's practice. "There's nothing wrong with competition. Tempers might flare."

In what starting point guard Deron Williams described as a "typical NBA fight"-because no real punches were thrown-reserves Mirza Teletovic and Andray Blatche tried to attack each other before being separated and exchanging a few words from a safe distance. The fight arose from the team's 'keep the ball out of the paint" drill where players get physical and try to prevent their opponents from getting position under the basket-something they let the Pistons Big men Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe do.

None of the players involves spoke with the media, and the fight was not much of a big deal. One of them is the injury to superstar point guard Deron Williams. He will still miss preseason games, but is likely to make the first official game of the season.

In his place is veteran Shaun Livingston, who almost retired due to nagging injuries. Teammate Kevin Garnett is all praises for the returnee, though: "I think Shaun's doing a great job. He's communicating to the team. He has a presence about himself. He's demanding. That's what you want your quarterback, your point guard, your coach on the floor, to be like. Obviously we don't have D-Will, but Shaun's doing an excellent job."