Big Night From Nets’ Bigs Fuels Escape In Washington
Nets Head Coach Steve Nash allowed himself to exhale after the Wizards misfired on a pair of potential game-winning three-pointers that enabled Brooklyn to escape the Capital City with a 119-118 victory on Wednesday night and then opened his postgame press conference with, “I think we made just enough plays defensively to get the job done.”
Um, no, that wasn’t it. In reality, the Nets (28-16) put on such a masterful offensive clinic in the first half, pouring in a whopping 74 points, that they were barely able to hold on in spite of their second-half shooting regression and numerous defensive lapses. Nash could have said, “Our dynamic offense helped us just enough to get the job done.”
In the last five minutes after James Harden finished off a pretty play by converting Kyrie Irving’s feed to put the Nets up by eight points, here were the results of Washington’s ensuing possessions until the frenetic ending sequence:
Two free throws
Bucket
Bucket
And-1 bucket (though Montrezl Harrell missed the free throw)
Missed layup
Stepped out of bounds
Bucket
Two free throws
Three-point bucket (I have no clue what James Harden was doing with Brooklyn up four with 36 seconds remaining instead of guarding Kyle Kuzma at the three-point line)
After Harden had his shot blocked with 16 seconds remaining, Washington raced upcourt in transition and set up Kuzma for another clean three-point look with five seconds remining. Ex-Net Spencer Dinwiddie then missed a desperation heave off Harrell’s offensive rebound as Harden nearly careened into Dinwiddie’s landing area.
Some defensive stand. More like, “Make-or-miss league.” If either shot went down, Nash would have been singing a different tune about his team’s defensive effort in his postgame media session.
One of the Nets’ best defensive plays as the game tightened in the fourth quarter was an illegal one, when assistant coach David Vanterpool (intentionally or inadvertently, it doesn’t matter—it’s supposed to be a technical foul) reached out from the sideline to deflect a Dinwiddie pass intended for an open Kuzma in the left corner, resulting in a steal by an alert Kessler Edwards.
The Nets did cut down on the bleeding of second chance points allowed (an outrageous 19 in the first half, just 2 after intermission, and none in the fourth quarter), but otherwise, Brooklyn’s defensive execution when the game was on the line wasn’t much different from how they closed their 114-107 loss in Cleveland on Monday. In the final five minutes of that contest, the Cavs went on a 13-7 run on 10 offensive possessions. Over the two games, that equates to a horrid 140 defensive rating in the final five minutes.
Here was the difference between the two end-games: Instead of blowing a pair of bunnies like he did against the massive Cleveland front line, Nets center LaMarcus Aldridge was a beast that the Wizards had no spell to deal with on Wednesday, not just in crunch time, but over the course of his 32 minutes on the court. Aldridge, who missed the previous five games with a sore right foot, scored 27 points on 11-for-15 shooting, including 6-for-8 on his patented mid-range jumpers, according to NBA.com. When the Wizards switched the lighter Kuzma onto him off Nets’ pick-and-rolls, Aldridge took him into the post and went to work, with a pair of buckets and two free throws during the final three minutes.
When you factor in rookie Day’Ron Sharpe’s production as the nominal starting center (14 points in 16 foul-plagued minutes), the Nets received a total of 41 points from a position that hasn’t been all that prolific this season—though Aldridge was averaging over 13 points per game going into Wednesday’s contest, he’s only suited up for 31 of Brooklyn’s 44 games, resulting in the Nets owning a 23rd-place ranking in points per game out of their centers, per NBA.com.
With the NBA’s leading scorer Kevin Durant out for a reported four-to-six weeks with a strained PCL, the Nets will continue to desperately need such excess contributions, even on the road where the wondrous Irving (game-high 30 points on Wednesday, in exquisite fashion) is eligible to pick up some of the slack.
Nash must prioritize floor spacing in his lineup combinations, though it’s been easier with non-shooters Nic Claxton and DeAndre’ Bembry also unavailable the last few games due to injuries. Bruce Brown was the only member of Brooklyn’s eight-man rotation on Wednesday who didn’t have to be guarded on the perimeter. In prior games, we’ve seen too often how inadequate spacing inevitably leads to not only inefficient offense, but lousy defensive metrics as well.
I know I keep jumping ahead to when the Nets get all their bodies back, including the reigning three-point shooting champ Joe Harris, when it should really be just wishful thinking, but this team was constructed to outscore opponents first and then clamp down on them in crucial segments of a game. That’s still the case, especially in this stretch where the defensively-underrated KD’s absence has a profound effect on both ends of the floor.
Nash is correct that the mission is to focus on getting enough stops to pull these types of games out, but when he reviews Wednesday’s video, I think he’ll see that the Nets were saved by their bigs’ offensive firepower, while the defense failed to live up to his standard.