The New Jersey Nets blamed their NBA Finals loss to the Spurs not on their inability to stop Tim Duncan or their lack of success in getting their fast break going, but on a divisive locker room that was split over who is the greatest New Jersey rock icon of all – Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi.

“Yo, it’s straight up Springsteen, dog,” yelled Nets forward Kenyon Martin to teammates across the locker room in a tense scene after the Game 6 elimination loss. “Why you gotta be saying it’s Bon Jovi? You know you trippin’, right kid? Bruce is The Boss, yo!”

Nets coach Byron Scott traced his team’s turmoil to hours before Game 1, when his players couldn’t decide on playing Springsteen or Bon Jovi on the locker room stereo system. Reports said that an all-out locker room brawl broke out, with punches being thrown on both sides of a melee that had Martin, Richard Jefferson, Kerry Kittles and others in the Springsteen camp, and Jason Kidd, Dikembe Mutumbo, Lucious Harris, Tamar Slay and Aaron Williams on the Bon Jovi side.

Scott wouldn’t confirm that there was a fight before Game 1, but did admit that his team broke apart from the inside that night. “It became all but impossible to control them or to get them to play as a team. Their love of their favorite New Jersey rock ‘n’ roll icons was just too strong to get past.”

But Scott wouldn’t go so far as to put the blame on his team.

“These players have developed a lot of pride in New Jersey as the season has gone on,” said Scott. “At the beginning of the year, they were playing 50 Cent or Jay-Z in the locker room, but not anymore. Now it’s straight Bruce and Jovi.”
Star point guard and team leader Kidd didn’t shirk though from blaming his team’s loss on the internal squabble.

“Sure – it’s true. We lost because of the Springsteen-Bon Jovi thing, I’m not too proud to admit that,” he said. “Some people on this team just need to recognize how great Bon Jovi is. I mean come on – ‘Livin’ on a Prayer,’ ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ – those are awesome songs. What does Springsteen have?”