The Nets' defence - or why they're far from being a serious contender

Brooklyn's most glaring on-court issue showed itself even vs a team missing their 3 best offensive players

The Brooklyn Nets shockingly lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in Ben Simmons’ return game for a variety of reasons. 15 turnovers to just 9 for the Sixers; hot shooting from a determined Philly team; a relatively quiet Kevin Durant game in which his historic streak of 25-point performances came to an end. But most of all, they lost for the following reason: Their defence was unwatchable.

To be clear, I’m not saying the Nets finishing as a top defence this season was on anyone’s bingo card. Basketball is a game of size, and they lack it with Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, and Patty Mills all on the roster and a competent backup big not. Ben Simmons is the one who in theory could provide the point-of-attack work you’d expect from a small guard, but he no longer has Joel Embiid to execute a drop with. Kevin Durant and Royce O’Neale are solid, but neither transformative.

That said, last night’s dud against the 76ers wasn’t strictly a matter of personnel - though a lackthereof certainly didn’t help. Instead, the Nets failed to play with even a tenth of the effort one would typically expect out of an NBA team, committed errors you’d be hard-pressed to find in a high school game, and overall did not seem to be on the same page as a team (if you can even call them that). They were out-worked (20 to 4 on the offensive glass, more on that later), out-hustled, and flat-out out-played by an undermanned Sixers team. Let’s take a dive into exactly how it happened.

A Lack Of Decisiveness

Playing a switch-heavy defence in the NBA is not nearly as simple as one might think. It’s a coverage that requires maximum cohesion, an endless amount of reps together. The 2 defenders involved have to simultaneously exchange matchups with a purpose, or else they’re susceptible to giving up slivers of daylight to the best players in the world. The Nets definitely fall into the latter category. The lesser of the two.

All night, there were several possessions in which a Sixers ball-screen action materialised and the Nets failed to switch accordingly. Take the following plays for instance. Both times, Kevin Durant lazily audibles for a switch, and [insert teammate] fails to receive the message (Durant is equally at fault on the first play). Open shot for Philly both times. To have these sort of miscommunications is something you wouldn’t expect from any NBA team, much less one that is supposed to be a contender.

That’s not the only way in which Brooklyn appeared out-of-sync when defending the pick-and-roll either. There were also plays such as the following, where the screener’s defender stayed in drop coverage as opposed to stepping out and switching the action. In both of these instances, the lack of decisiveness conceded a wide open triple for the red-hot Sixers. Again, these just aren’t miscues an NBA team of any calibre should have:

Over-Helping is not helping

The last thing an NBA defence wants is to give up advantages; to be put into rotation. In the simplest of terms, you prevent that by containing the ball and making it so help isn’t necessary. Except, that just isn’t a strong-suit for some teams - Brooklyn included. Take the following play for instance. Joe Harris (a bit more on him later) is outmatched on an island against Tobias Harris, leaving Ben Simmons with no choice but to send a hard double. The result is a wide open 3 for Shake Milton with Seth Curry failing to make a decisive rotation:

But having a poor defender or two that regularly puts the defence in vulnerable spots isn’t always the end of the world. If a team happens to have such a player, they can offset it by being smart in how or when they help and minimizing errors on the possessions where help isn’t demanded - if you’re already forced to send more help than one would want, you have to make sure not to force more rotations when they aren’t needed. Except…the Nets don’t seem to understand that, either.

The main culprit of Brooklyn’s over-helping last night was definitely Kyrie Irving. Irving logged a steal and 2 blocks last night, but he couldn’t have played a worse defensive game sans those 3 possessions. All game, he over-helped or gambled and left the other Nets to clean up his mistakes. He free-lanced off the ball and seemed to think he was a Jimmy Butler-esque wing roamer, when that’s just not who he is. Just watch the following clip. Going for a pick-six with 2 seconds left in the half and consequently giving up a wide open buzzer beater 3 could qualify for being the (Oxford) dictionary definition of ‘undisciplined’.

Kyrie wasn’t the only culprit, though. It’s a team problem. The following play kinda says it all. Yes, it’s Matisse Thybulle, a notoriously unreliable outside shooter, parked in the corner. However, for Seth Curry to send a late double is an inexplicable decision even in that late-clock situation, and is especially odd when you consider that Claxton had been doing a nice job against Melton. It’s truly a mystery what this team is thinking on defence sometimes.

Size Matters

Perhaps the most notable set of numbers was the following: 4 to 20. That is, 4 Nets offensive rebounds to 20 of them for the 76ers.

A solid portion of this was a result of size. Brooklyn actually has the same problems that the Miami Heat - another undersized, switch-heavy defence - do. Opposing offences are well aware that the team only plays one true big (Claxton and Bam Adebayo respectively), so they take advantage of their defence’s switch-heavy nature by pulling the lone big man away from the hoop on a switch. This forces the teams smaller players to battle on the boards, and all it takes is common sense to know that’s not a recipe for success on the glass.

It also didn’t help that head coach Jacque Vaughn played lineups that further compound those issues. To begin the 4th, all 4 of Kyrie Irving, Seth Curry, Patty Mills, AND Joe Harris were on the floor with Ben Simmons at the 5. Good luck holding up on defence under those conditions.

That said, to put all the blame on a lack of size would be beyond silly. It’s cliche, and it sounds dumb and overly simplistic at times, but rebounding sometimes really is just a matter of who wants it more. And last night, the Nets did not want it more. You’re taught at every level to box out. If you’re already undersized as the Nets are, you should crash the defensive boards at the sight of any opposing shot attempt. You have to gang-rebound. But Brooklyn didn’t do any of that. Instead, they simply stood there and watched as Montrezl Harrell, PJ Tucker, and Paul Reed did their best 1996 Dennis Rodman impressions:

What makes all of this worse is that Brooklyn really has no solution barring a blockbuster trade. They have no playable back-up big to speak of (watch any game that Day’ron Sharpe played in this season, and you’ll probably notice that the Nets gave up game-turning runs during his minutes), meaning the only two “bigs” on the team (with the exception of Kevin Durant) are Nic Claxton (who has been excellent this year) and Ben Simmons.

Except, even then there’s a massive dilemma: Simmons and Claxton cannot play together. Both are among the worst shooters in the league, dreading the thought of heading to the free throw line and clogging lanes when they aren’t hacked. They have to be staggered as a result, because even scorers as gifted as Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving can’t consistently overcome defences that send 3 bodies their way. Such a restraint made it so Simmons/Claxton hardly shared the court past the 1st quarter, which led to Claxton finishing the game having logged a substandard 21 minutes. And when that’s the case, Brooklyn can only expect nightmarish defensive performances like the one they had against the Sixers. Long story short, the Nets do not have the two-way lineup flexibility that all of the top teams do.

Other Issues:

• The Nets transition defence was an absolute trainwreck last night. It’s one thing to give up a transition opportunity every now and then off turnovers or long rebounds. But to allow a team to take the ball out of the net following a made basket, out-run you to the other end of the floor, and make a basket of their own all within a couple seconds? Against a team that ranks 2nd to last in transition frequency no less? I’ve used this word more than once already but that is just unacceptable.

• The appeal with the Nets’ roster heading into the season was the amount of shooting they possessed. But over a month into the season, two of their shooters appear overplayed if not completely unplayable: Joe Harris and Patty Mills. First off, the former isn’t even hitting his shots at the rate that the Nets would hope for - just 35% of Harris’ 3-point attempts have seen the bottom of the net. But that isn’t even the main issue; that would be that neither can defend. Mills showed (and has shown) his age (34 years) in the limited action he got, and Harris was targeted down the stretch as if the other 4 Nets had a deadly disease. If the Nets are serious about winning basketball games, they may need to reduce the playing time of both.

• Luckily, there’s a solution to the Mills problem: more Edmond Sumner minutes (yes, that’s the state this team is in). The same cannot be said regarding Harris though; Harris’ regression makes it so Brooklyn’s best option at small forward is Royce O’Neale. O’Neale has been known as a quality 3&D wing since his tenure with the Utah Jazz, but the reality is, he doesn’t provide half the amount of space on offence that Harris does and has visibly regressed on defence. Needless to say, this is really just a mess of a roster.

  

To conclude…

I’ll reiterate what I’ve been saying this whole article: that the Nets showed unacceptable levels of effort last night and their roster issues only worsened the matter. The Sixers may have been without Embiid, Harden, and Maxey, but an NBA team without their 3 best players is still just that - an NBA team. They can and will take full advantage if the opposition sleepwalks through the game on defence. As a result, Brooklyn really needs to find a solution to their defensive problems. Because if they do, they’ll be a good basketball team, perhaps even something a little more. If they don’t though, they and their fans can expect a first round exit, assuming they even make it that far.