Lazed and Confused

The Nets look lost on defense.

In checking a box score, one of the first things I do is look at a team’s jump shooting numbers. Not to be all “how’s it goink”, but streaky shooting can often explain much of a game’s result. This is not the same thing as saying that luck is all that matters; a team’s defensive approach plays into the opportunities that their opponents have to create their own luck. On Thursday night, the Dallas Mavericks shot 50% on 40 three point attempts in their victory over the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets might count themselves unlucky given that Dallas had shot 39% over its previous games.

21 of the 40 attempts were wide open per NBA Advanced Stats (defined as a shot where the nearest defender was at least six feet away); Dallas had averaged 12 wide open threes over its previous four games. It’s not as surprising that Dallas made so many more threes when so many of those looks were good ones.

Brooklyn’s defense of the arc against Dallas is a microcosm of the team’s defense this season; lazy and confused. The Nets defense ranks dead last in the league, giving up nearly 121 points per game. The league’s best offense is whoever happens to be playing Brooklyn on any given night. Let’s go to the lowlight reel, starting with the lazy.¹

There is too much standing around with these Nets. The usually dependable Patty Mills loiters in no man’s land after digging on Dorian Finney Smith’s drive; by the time he realizes that his man Spencer Dinwiddie is wide open on the perimeter, it’s too late:

Or how about Kevin Durant deciding he is over marking Dorian Finney-Smith below? At first glance it looks like Durant has picked up Willie Cauley-Stein when Nic Claxton goes over to double Luke Doncic, but the breakdown occurs much earlier. The Nets need to be communicating early and often.

The Nets were on the second night of a back-to-back, but this is still the first half of a one possession game. Who has Maxi Kleber?

Brooklyn seems to be making elementary mistakes, over helping off of strong side shooters time and time again, much to the frustration of Richard Jefferson on the Yes broadcast.

I initially thought the Nets were strategically helping off of Josh Green (something the Golden State Warriors successfully did in last year’s Western Conference Finals) and were unlucky to catch Green on a hot night, but that’s Christian Wood and Dorian Finney-Smith in the clips above. There wasn’t really a method to the madness.

The Nets often sent a second man at Doncic and Dinwiddie, defensible given Dinwiddie’s size advantage on many matchups and Doncic’s otherworldly abilities. Effective doubles, particularly against a player with Doncic’s vision, require the other three players to nail their rotations. The Nets were all help, no recovery. This is too much time for Maxi Kleber to find an open shooter in the corner.

Those back line breakdowns reached their low point in the overtime period, where Dallas iced the Nets with three straight threes off of Luka high pick and rolls. On the first, Yuta Watanabe plays center field till Kyrie Irving is able to recover back onto Luka, but that gives Tim Hardaway Junior plenty of time to line up a shot before Watanabe can recover.

Credit Dallas there for having their other three players flush against the baseline, forcing the Nets to defend the pick and roll two-on-two.

Dallas essentially ran the same play next time down the floor, with Kleber in THJ’s place. Watanabe’s recovery is again too little too late.

Next play down, it was Reggie Bullock’s turn to get in on the fun. Another high pick and roll, the Nets run the same pick and roll coverage, and…

Yuta Watanabe is all of us, so tired of seeing the Nets get burned the same way over and over, that he doesn’t even bother recovering.

Three straight plays, the same process each time; praying that the Mavericks miss open threes is not much of a defensive adjustment. What could the Nets have done? Throwing different looks at Luka may have been a good start. Try blitzing before the screen comes, going under and daring the pull up, anything. Watch the second and third clips again and the third Maverick is on the weak side wing instead of the dunker spot; perhaps the Nets could have sent help from the man there. Of course, that would rely on the other defenders rotating over, X-ing out, and otherwise displaying a level of urgency that just didn’t seem to be there. The Nets have a middling offense, but the return of Joe Harris and Seth Curry, not to forget the continued presence of KD and Kyrie, should stabilize things on that end. The defense looks like it has a long way to go though.

1. That laziness also manifests in botched box outs like this one:

In related news, the Nets are getting battered on the defensive glass through the first five games.