Closing Time Continues To Bring Pain To Nets Fans
Closing Time Continues To Bring Pain To Nets Fans
Don’t Expect Simmons’ Return To Cure End-Game Nightmares
The Nets are putting together a full syllabus for a Master Class in how to lose basketball games. Thursday night’s 96-94 defeat to visiting Minnesota was their 17th in their last 21 games. Diving deeper into Brooklyn’s current 1-7 stretch, six of those games were within a five-point margin during the last five minutes. The Nets lost all six of them.
For a change, I didn’t have any problem with how Nets Head Coach Jacque Vaughn managed Thursday’s contest, including his closing lineup, and the whistles, if anything, were slanted in Brooklyn’s direction. Yet they still dropped another game that was theirs for the taking.
Mikal Bridges’ missed free throw with 2.4 seconds remaining doomed Brooklyn to Thursday’s defeat, but of all the ways the Nets have found to fumble away winnable games, one particular issue has permeated the prior late-game collapses, and it reared its ugly head again through much of the fourth quarter: When the opposing defense stiffens in crunch time, the Nets wilt.
Before his aborted free throw, Bridges made a couple of buckets down the stretch to raise his shooting percentage in clutch situations in this six-game span to nearly 58% (all stats courtesy of NBA.com). The rest of the Nets? They’ve gone 12-for 42 (28.6% from the field, including 5-for-20 (25%) on three-pointers. The excessive bricklaying has led to four blown fourth quarter leads of at least nine points in the last 11 days.
How does this keep happening? The Nets simply lack a ballhandler who can create an advantage in one-on-one situations. Players like Bridges and Cam Thomas can sometimes navigate through a maze to find enough space to get off shots, many of which are of the highest degrees of difficulty, for themselves, but they haven’t been effective in beating help defense to initiate an attack sequence through ball movement, which yields the team’s best looks. Combined, the duo has registered a grand total of three assists in 48 clutch minutes.
Spencer Dinwiddie has had some memorable moments acting as an isolation closer in both of his Brooklyn stints, including notching a few game-winners. I can only speculate as to why he’s not that guy anymore, be it physical (age/undisclosed injury) or mental (feeling disrespected by the coaching staff/affected by daily trade rumors). He missed a pull-up from the mid-paint area with 47 seconds remaining but was otherwise uninvolved when Thursday’s game got tight. In general, his trademarked aggressiveness has been severely tapered, driving about 40% fewer times per game than when compared to last season.
Without Dinwiddie’s drive-and-kicks, the Nets’ offense has been typically stagnant in late-game situations. And given the connectivity between bad offense and defensive efficiency, it’s no shock to see the Nets are registering a a 122.5 defensive rating and a minus-26.9 net rating over the six clutch losses, with a cumulative deficit of 87-66 in 37 minutes.
The few optimists remaining amongst Nets Nation are betting that a cure is lurking around the corner with the return of Ben Simmons, whose agent fueled their fire on social media. From my perspective, they’d be better off putting that money on the Jets to win the 2025 Super Bowl.
Simmons, who played in six games before a back injury sent him back to rehab (he has missed all but 48 of Brooklyn’s 153 games since he was acquired from Philadelphia in the February 2022 James Harden blockbuster trade), is reportedly working out with the G League Long Island Nets this weekend. If he comes through unscathed, he could see NBA action as early as Monday’s home contest versus Utah.
Those who are regular readers on this forum are well aware of my skepticism about Simmons, going back to the post where I begged the Nets to steer clear of him in advance of the Harden trade. At this stage, Nets fans have to understand that A) Since back issues are tricky business, his minutes will be heavily restricted for a while, B) Back-to-backs, of which Brooklyn has three in February, are out of the question, and C) We have no idea as to whether his few elite skills (pace, passing, and defense) are diminished the way they were last season coming off back surgery.
Even during the small sample of the six games Simmons played this season where he supposedly felt spry, it’s not like he dominated crunch time. His substandard shooting allows defenses to play off him in the half court, making it hard for him to beat people off the dribble. And then he’s leery of drawing contact lest he get sent to the foul line, where he has made 1-of-4 from the stripe this season.
Five of Simmons’ six games played went down to the wire—he scored all of two points with 10 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 turnovers in 19 clutch minutes during which the Nets were outscored by 17 points. Not much of a positive difference-maker in these situations, if you ask me.
Simmons can be aesthetically pleasing when he has the ball in his hands in the open court or executes an exquisite dish to the opposite corner. His size will help Brooklyn some on the defensive end (though the team had a worse rating per 100 possessions and defensive rebounding percentage with Simmons on the court versus off in those limited minutes). Unfortunately, healthy or not, his game brings the same obstacles that mired his end days in Philly. Worst of all, he’s not a closer.
Getting Simmons back could make the Nets look different—and that includes different ways for them to lose games in crunch time.