KD’s Injury Will Test Vaughn’s Growth As Nets Head Coach
Jacque Vaughn deservedly received the NBA’s Eastern Conference Coach of the Month of December for leading the Nets to a 12-1 record, a run which has since been extended with three more wins in Brooklyn’s four January contests.
For all the good work Vaughn put in to eradicate the stink from the Nets’ 2-5 start to the season under predecessor Steve Nash, we’re about to find out how good Vaughn really is.
For Kevin Durant’s MCL sprain in his right knee has put a mega damper on the Nets’ surge up the standings. Though the Nets’ announcement that their superstar forward would be “evaluated in two weeks,” the injury, stemming from a collision with Heat wing Jimmy Butler late in the third quarter of Brooklyn’s thrilling 102-101 victory on Sunday, is expected to keep Durant out for about a month, according to a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
So while the total games lost may end up less than the 22 games Durant missed from a similar injury to his left knee almost a year ago, make no mistake—it’s going to be rough going for Brooklyn for a while. There’s just no way to replicate all that KD has done for this team, whether it’s scoring (seventh-best 29.7 points per game) at a historic efficiency, one-on-one defending and rim protection in help defense, or pure leadership. It’s quite a comfort for Vaughn to not only have a walking bucket to go to when needed but also for that player to be a basketball savant who mostly makes the appropriate decisions with and without the ball.
The Nets’ mission now is to not fall into the same tailspin that derailed their 2021-22 campaign, when they lost 17 of those 22 games, including 11 in a row. That slump sent Brooklyn tumbling from first place in the East all the way down into needing to scrape and claw their way into the play-in round down the stretch. By the time the Nets reached the Celtics in the Conference quarterfinals, Durant and Kyrie Irving seemed spent.
According to Durant, that awful segment of the season was one reason why he requested a trade this past summer. He apparently did not appreciate the bad “habits” that formed like weeds which were all too ready to use his injury as a fertilizing excuse.
This time, the Nets are said to be better equipped for such a misfortune. While it’s true that Brooklyn’s depth, particularly at the wing/forward positions, is far superior, don’t be fooled that those players who are forced to step up can match KD’s numbers even in the aggregate. Other than Irving, no one on this team has proven to be expert at creating shots out of bogged down offense. Per NBA.com, the Nets player with the next most isolation possessions this season has been second-year guard Cam Thomas, who has been out of Vaughn’s rotation and has shot 12-for-29 on those one-on-one forays. Seth Curry is more of a pick-and-roll specialist (1.27 points per possession on 40 opportunities, per NBA.com) and T.J. Warren, even during his Indiana heyday in 2020, averaged an inefficient 0.87 points per isolation possession.
What Vaughn has going for him, though, is a record, albeit limited, of prior success in these situations. The Nets not only overcame a nine-point fourth quarter deficit and held on for the win in Miami after Durant exited Sunday’s contest, Vaughn also oversaw a 136-133 victory in Indiana one month ago on that had all the trappings of a give-up game. The Pacers succumbed to a Brooklyn squad missing virtually every rotation player, including Durant and Irving.
In the NBA, you can steal regular season games just by playing hard and focused. How many times over the past few years have injury-depleted opponents engineered upsets against the Nets using that formula?
The Nets didn’t execute all that well offensively in Sunday’s crunch time without Durant. The game was decided by their effort—scrambling on defense to contest shots and secure loose balls and rebounds—as exemplified by Royce O’Neale. The Nets wing’s putback of a wayward Irving three-pointer with 3.2 seconds remaining after battling in the paint to secure the loose ball was his second such game-winner this season. And on Miami’s final possession, it was O’Neale who came over to help in the paint after Butler beat Yuta Watanabe off the dribble, a controversial contest that the NBA’s last two-minute report deemed a correct non-call despite the howls from Miami.
This next stretch of games, starting with a once highly-anticipated rematch against the Celtics on Thursday at Barclays Center, will similarly test Vaughn’s ability to adjust on the fly. It won’t be easy. How will he manage Irving’s rest periods? Will Vaughn opt to unleash Thomas despite his defensive deficiencies? How much can Vaughn lean on Warren, who has played a total of 20 games since the 2020 Bubble due to multiple foot surgeries? Can Vaughn coax Ben Simmons into giving the team more aggression attacking the basket, knowing the mental block about getting fouled is still prevalent?
Most importantly, can Vaughn keep the team believing they can win without Durant? That didn’t seem to be the case last season, when Nash’s Nets not only lost games during which they were clearly outmanned, but also fell to a bunch of teams they could have beaten.
If Vaughn can help keep the Nets afloat during this stretch, he wouldn’t just retain his Coach of the Month title--he’d be the clear frontrunner for Coach of the Year.