Nets Defense Stifled Sixers Stars To Spoil Philly Boo Party
Between Kyrie Irving’s anti-vaxx obstinance, a devastating swath of injuries, the James Harden drama, and 24 losses in a 34-game stretch heading into an overhyped matchup in Philadelphia on Thursday, Nets fans hadn’t had a whole lot to feel good about in the last few months.
For one night, though, the fans were allowed to put their depression in the rear-view mirror as the Nets showed why other teams in the Eastern Conference should fear them come playoff time. Specifically, Brooklyn put on a defensive clinic while wiping the floor with the Sixers in a wire-to-wire 129-100 victory, shutting up a city that bid up ticket prices for the event so they could boo another spectator.
Ben Simmons, who declared in training camp that he wasn’t mentally ready to play for Philadelphia, incurring further wrath from a fan base that had already soured on him for his inept playoff performances, was dealt to the Nets alongside Seth Curry and Andre Drummond in a package for Harden on February 10. However, Simmons, who has the chops to become Brooklyn’s best defender, still hasn’t even practiced with his new team, now nursing a sore back. The Nets encouraged him to travel to Philadelphia so he could grow comfortable with his support group as he took the heat from the Philly faithful.
Watching from the bench, Simmons witnessed a defensive effort well beyond anything the Nets have put forth this season. They set season highs in both steals (13) and blocks (15). Countless other times Nets defenders got their hands on balls, forcing the Sixers to reset. The intensity fueled Brooklyn’s transition game to the tune of 28 fast break points, also a season high.
The easy buckets were only a small part of Brooklyn’s offensive explosion—they actually shot better from the floor (56%) than from the free throw line (53%). Irving, Curry, and Kevin Durant came out with fire in their eyes, combining to score 71 points on just 48 field goal attempts.
You couldn’t have predicted it, but it was Irving’s dogged guarding of Harden that set the tone for the night. Known more for his tendencies toward indifference on that end, Kyrie seemed to take this game as a personal challenge, fighting through screens to stay attached to Harden’s left hand and bodying him without overfouling. Harden entered the contest averaging the third-most free throw attempts per game (8.1) in the league—he went to the line once on Thursday, hitting both shots, which marked just his fourth time in his 50 games played this season where he took fewer than three free throws.
In what was supposed to be his revenge game, Harden instead choked the bit, scoring just 11 points with 5 assists on 3-for-17 shooting while committing 4 turnovers. NBA.com didn’t have the tracking data finalized as of this writing, but at one point the TNT broadcasters noted that Harden was 1-for-7 when Irving was the closest defender. (I know for sure that on two of Harden’s three successful three-pointers, James Johnson was the Nets defender caught going the wrong way on the ball screens, hardly a surprise.)
By the end of the third quarter, with the Nets up by a whopping 32 points, Harden was seen receiving his “I don’t feel like playing anymore treatment” on the Sixers sideline while the fans who previously reserved their booing for Simmons redirected their ire toward the home team.
At that point, Philadelphia was shooting 8-for-34 (23.5%) in the paint, an unheard of level of bricklaying in a league where the average conversion rate is about 56% from those ranges. For that, give a good deal of credit to unsung hero Nicolas Claxton for the job he did in a pinch on Philadelphia’s MVP candidate Joel Embiid after Andre Drummond was hit with three personal fouls in eight first quarter minutes. When Brooklyn’s erratic third-year sub checked in, the Nets lead was a mere five points. But then the Nets closed the frame with a 14-2 run, with the bullyball master Embiid, despite a 65-pound weight advantage over Claxton, misfiring on both his field goal attempts in that span. Embiid took another 0-for-2 collar in the second quarter against Claxton, though he did add five more free throws to his pile of 15 on 19 attempts for the half.
After the game, Sixers Head Coach Doc Rivers bemoaned his team’s inability to match the Nets’ physicality, which is exactly what his Brooklyn counterpart Steve Nash has often charged his club with on all these nights during their slide down the standings. The Nets were often the softer team, too small and prone to breakdowns to slow down a top-flight offense like Philly’s.
Brooklyn looked anything but on Thursday. You could see it from someone like backup guard Goran Dragic, who would routinely hit Embiid first before a screen could free him up as he moved across the paint, and then stepped in front of the freight train to take a charge late in the second quarter. In general, the Nets’ defenders helped when appropriate but then also expended the energy to rotate out hard to contest Philly’s three-point shooters. It was these little and big things that had been mostly missing from the Nets’ defense during their slump.
The Nets (34-33) are still looking like a play-in round candidate, but they gave themselves a little breathing room with the upset, as they are now two games up in the race to stay out of having to win two games from the 9/10 seeds and are 3.5 games ahead of 11th-place Washington.
As sound as this win was for the Nets, though, it will all be for naught if they can’t build on the defensive foundation they established in Philadelphia when they take on their intra-borough rival Knicks on Sunday afternoon at Barclays Center.
We always knew that when Irving and Durant could share the court, this team would score in bunches. Aside from the availability of their stars, the only open question was whether they had it in them to get the necessary stops to win big games.
Unfortunately, we’ve only seen rare glimpses of such a defensive mentality. Maybe when three-time NBA All-Star Simmons is ready to some of Bruce Brown’s minutes and if Irving can be freed from the vaccine mandate to play all the games—and then play them at Thursday’s level of engagement--the Nets will finally lay rest to all doubts.