Let’s start with two numbers, one a caveat and the other a tease.
The caveat: 46 possessions. That’s how many possessions that Nets’ starting five in the two Los Angeles games (Christmas Day against the Lakers and two nights later against the Clippers) has played as a unit on the season.
The tease: 167.4, the offensive rating for that James Harden-Patty Mills-Bruce Brown-DeAndre’ Bembry-Nicolas Claxton lineup per Cleaning the Glass.
Rather than parse sample sizes, it is fun to look at what this lineup did against two above average defenses.1 The Nets’ starters were largely a function of Covid-related exigencies and there is reason to think this group would have a hard time putting points on the board. None of Brown, Bembry, or Claxton pose much of an outside threat, potentially making for cramped spacing. Even Bembry’s 48% mark on threes this season - a massive outlier from his career numbers and due for some regression - is built on few attempts and a hot streak from the corners. With Patty Mills as the only threating shooter on the team, one would worry that opponents would clog Harden’s driving lanes by cheating off the aforementioned trio, or be happy to blitz Harden with early doubles.
That’s where Brown’s well-documented mastery of the short roll comes in. The Nets use what spacing is afforded to them by this lineup well: In this play from early in the Clippers game, Mills and Bembry are stationed in the corners and Nic Claxton, a vertical threat, is in the dunker spot. As he demonstrated against the Bucks in the playoffs, Brown is a good decision maker on the short roll. With Patty Mills’ man loathe to help on Claxton when Ivica Zubac is forced to step up on Brown’s roll, Brown finds the lob to Claxton.2
That starting lineup has attempted over 40% of it’s attempts at the rim and very few from three per Cleaning the Glass. Broaden the lens to all lineups that include the three man combination of Brown, Claxton, and Harden (106 possessions this season) and 65% of attempts either come at the rim, or from the short mid-range “floater” region. Given Brown enough space and time on the short roll and he will gladly take that floater.
Brown isn’t making those shots at quite the rate he was last season (36% vs. 48%), but some of that might be a function of his inconsistent role in the rotation. He is still taking enough of those shots to keep defenses honest (shot chart below from CTG).
Sending help or sinking in off of one of the Nets’ non-threatening shooters (Blake Griffin, Bembry, et al.) is the obvious move for opponents. Notice Griffin cutting as soon as his man, Zubac, commits on Brown’s roll above though. Bembry is an especially smart cutter; if spacing issues means trading substandard threes for high value rim looks, the Nets will take it.
Throughout his career, Bembry has been close to the 100th percentile for frequency of rim attempts amongst wings per CTG. This season, Bembry is scoring 1.5 points per possession off of cuts per Synergy data.
These lineups will hit a wall, although it remains to be seen if they will be given a chance. Brown, Bembry, and the rarely-healthy Claxton have not been rotation staples when the Nets are fully healthy. I was high on the Brown-Claxton-Harden combo last season, when in 115 regular season possessions they blitzed the league with a +24.3 point differential (124 ORTG, 100 DRTG). If Harden truly is back back and Claxton can stay healthy, that threesome along with the indefatigable Patty Mills is the core of a killer second unit when the Nets stagger their stars. Opponents will test them by daring the non shooters to make shots, or toss janky zone looks at them. The cutting and simple playmaking on display in recent games bodes well in that case.
It has to be noted that the Lakers were missing Anthony Davis and the Clippers were missing Paul George, although the Clippers have maintained a top ten defensive mark even with George off the floor this season.
Little things make a difference; were Claxton to be on the other side of the basket, he might have been tagged by Bembry’s defender given the weaker threat posed by Bembry on the perimeter.