Hold off on sounding those alarms, Nets fans. Brooklyn won a hard-fought basketball game on Friday night, edging the pesky Raptors, 109-105, to even its record at 1-1.
With a difficult road trip at Memphis and Milwaukee on tap next, a second consecutive loss at Barclays Center to open the 2022-23 campaign had the potential to lead to some uncomfortable discussions by the end of next week.
Instead, the Nets can take heart that they do in fact have a little bit of, well, heart, to not crumble in the face of adversities such as Toronto’s 12-0 run over a 3:52 span that tied the game at 100-100 late in the fourth quarter. The Nets were just a tad better in the back-and-forth crunch time, hitting three’s whereas Toronto was converting two’s to forge ahead.
None of those buckets were bigger than the one from…
Redemption Royce
Royce O’Neale, who misfired on his first three three-point attempts on Friday, had no choice but to put up another one after Kyrie Irving was forced to pass out of a double team with the shot clock winding down.
Fortunately, O’Neale’s stroke was pure that time and it put the Nets up by two possessions at 108-104 with 15.3 seconds remaining.
O’Neale, who was obtained in an offseason trade with Utah that cost Brooklyn the 2023 first-round pick it acquired in February’s James Harden-for-Ben Simmons-plus blockbuster, has been starting since Joe Harris didn’t appear close to ready to handle major minutes in his first regular season action since November’s ankle injury that required two surgeries.
A prototypical “3-and-D wing”. O’Neale’s value is more in the little things—he has great hands that has created a team-high five steals in the first two games. In addition, he’s also tied for the team lead in deflections and loose balls recovered, per NBA.com. Midway through the fourth quarter, he took a charge, upheld on the ensuing Toronto challenge, on star forward Pascal Siakam to punctuate a Nets run that eventually put them up by 12 points.
Strangely, as diligent as he is with defensive fundamentals and effort, O’Neale hasn’t been all that effective in defending one-on-one. I don’t have a whole lot of faith in NBA.com’s tracking data, but it shows that opponents have shot 26-for-48 (54%) when O’Neale is the closest defender. Even if those (small sample size) numbers aren’t spot on, it does match the eye test, as it seemed like both New Orleans and Toronto made it their mission to target him on switches onto their bigger players (Zion Williamson or Jonas Valanciunas for the Pelicans on Wednesday and then Siakam). In my opinion, I didn’t understand why Raptors guard Fred Van Vleet took only 11 shots when he found his spots so easily and went 7-for-11 from the floor, but you can’t argue with the game plan that produced Siakam’s 37 points on 15-for-21 shooting. Sitting among the sellout crowd, I too often yelled out, “Stop switching!” because I could foresee the disappointing end result.
In the end, though, it was fitting that O’Neale was the one rewarded for doing the dirty work.
The Nets Big 3 is Irving, Kevin Durant… and Nic Claxton?
Simmons is paid like he’s a third All-Star, but he is just not the finisher a contending team needs to make defenses pay for loading up against the Nets’ two legit superstars (see below). And when KD has a substandard performance (yes, he scored 27 points and made a huge three-pointer with 56 seconds remaining, but his shot was off for much of the night and he committed five turnovers), someone else has to pick up the third option scoring slack.
On Friday, that was Claxton, the Nets center who had his contract extended for two seasons at $17.5 million as a restricted free agent in the offseason. After his 19-point outing against Toronto, he is now third on the team in both points and Field goal attempts. If he could have converted free throws better than his brutal 40% clip, he’d have a few more points.
What has stood out with Claxton on the offensive end is how he’s been effective at driving the ball to the basket, He even took a steal in the backcourt coast-to-coast, finishing with a Euro-step around Siakam. It’s not his primary fashion of scoring—11 of his 14 field goals have been assisted, usually on interior passes—but his rediscovery of what he called “Young Clax” (even though he’s only 23) makes him an intriguing outlet option when so much of the defense’s focus is on KD and Kyrie.
Besides free throw shooting, the other aspect that required improvement was Claxton’s conditioning. Often rehabbing from injuries during his first three seasons and offseasons, his minutes always seemed to require stringent management. Nets Head Coach Steve Nash would often bemoan that Claxton wasn’t in good enough shape to bear the higher workload. After he logged just 25 minutes in the opening night loss to the Pelicans despite no foul issues, I wondered if Nash still had such concerns.
If he did, they were erased on Friday, as Claxton ran for 34 minutes, including all but 3:59 in the second half and 45 seconds in the fourth quarter. Those are Big 3-worthy minutes.
Baby Step Simmons
The way Simmons came out on Friday, with a pair of runners from the mid-paint areas in the first 5:11, you would have thought that it was a sign that he was back to being the multi-dimensional player from his Philadelphia days when he earned three All-Star berths. No, he never showed any aptitude for scoring outside the paint, but he never averaged under 14.3 points per game or fewer than 10 field goal attempts per game either. He found ways to leverage his unique combination of size (6-foot 10) and athleticism into points.
Yet in his first two games with Brooklyn, he has taken three and five shots, respectively, to produce a grand total of 10 points. After those two early buckets, he made just one more the rest of the night, taking an Irving feed to the hole in the fourth quarter.
I get it that everyone must be resigned to the fact that because he hadn’t played since June 2021 (even though Williamson last played for the Pelicans a month BEFORE Simmons and looked like his same brute self against the Nets on Wednesday) due to mental and physical (back surgery) issues, he’ll need time to find his game. It’s just that Nets fans would like to see some aggression when he has opportunities.
Simmons hasn’t lost his touch when it comes to passing—he dished out 10 assists against just three turnovers on Friday—but there are times when I wished he had a little “Young Clax” in him as well. Simmons has the higher basketball IQ, so the Nets should trust him more that he’ll make the right basketball play when he attacks defenses. He just has to want to do it.
For now, count Friday as a baby step in Simmons’ journey towards requisite offensive aggression.
Steve, I was one of those fans looking for the alarm to pull in Barclays Center as I spent good money to watch the Pelicans BEAT US LIKE A DRUM. For a first lesson, that one will slow Cook until January 6th when we travel to New Orleans and HOPEFULLY, execute a bulletproof game plan in a satisfying victory.
Switching unnecessarily is so weak. If we had a legit rim-protector, perhaps Nash could develop a legitimate defensive scheme to incorporate some switching.
Baby Step Ben is 100% accurate. Hopefully, his offense comes sooner than later.
Clax is the 3rd Star! Who would've guessed?! Certainly not me! Here's my observation and Steve, I'll post this on Twitter as well: size matters. Since Ben and Durant play the same position (Small-Forward), the best thing for Nash to start implementing is a death lineup with Irving and Durant in the back-court, Ben, Claxton, and Day'Ron... work with me here...
Day'Ron ain't much of a shooter, therefore, Marks MUST find a Center that'll give some space to Clax and Ben. Who that Center is, I don't know. How we get him, I don't know. Marks MUST figure it out though