Number One Seed In East Should Not Be Number One Priority For Nets—Health Is
A question that will continue to be asked of various Nets from all levels of the organization throughout the course of this season will be, “How important is securing the top seed in the Eastern Conference?”
It’s an easy one to evade, similar to the time I can recall a certain beat writer querying then Brooklyn coach Jason Kidd with something like, “How important is it to win at home?”, whereupon Kidd smirked and retorted, “We want to win every game we play.”
The standard response then, from all Nets from head-to-toe, would be that they would certainly relish the opportunity to possess home-court advantage throughout the 2022 NBA Playoffs. Though Brooklyn succumbed to Milwaukee in a Game 7 at Barclays Center in last season’s Eastern Conference semifinals, history is on the side of the home teams in those situations. Better to have it than not. No argument here.
Of course, the main reason why the Nets were unable to come out on top of the Bucks was due to the misfortune of injuries. James Harden was hobbled all postseason with a hamstring pull and then Kyrie Irving went down with a sprained ankle during Game 4. By Game 7, The Big 3 was more like a Big 1¼, with Kevin Durant putting the team on his back and coming within a toenail of pulling it off.
So, while the goal is always to win as many games as possible, the real test of this regular season will be what Sean Connery asked Kevin Costner in the famous scene from “The Untouchables”:
“What are you prepared to do?”
Before I answer, let’s hark back to the end of March and recall Harden’s first incident in a game against his former team, the Rockets. Obviously, NBA injuries often result from the bad luck of the draw. This one, though, you could pretty much see coming. Harden, who engineered a trade out of Houston earlier in the season by reporting, to put it mildly, not in the best of shape, had been AVERAGING a few seconds under 40 minutes per game in the previous 11 games that month. That included an All Star break where Harden didn’t exactly catch a full break, traveling to Atlanta and playing 32 less arduous minutes in that exhibition.
When asked during that stretch whether he was concerned that he was blowing out Harden’s engine, Nets coach Steve Nash basically shrugged his shoulders and gave a “What are you gonna do?” type answer. At the time, Durant was out with his own hamstring strain while Irving sat out a couple of games in late March with a groin injury. Nash had no choice but to ride Harden hard to pull out 10 wins in those 11 contests. While NBA plus/minus doesn’t always tell the whole story, it kind of made sense that Brooklyn was plus-52 with Harden on the court in that period and minus-12 when he sat.
Nash’s excessive playing time decisions weren’t hard to reconcile then--the Nets were fighting for playoff seeding and chased regular season wins. In addition, I’m guessing that it wasn’t easy for Nash, a rookie coach, to overrule any of his stars when they insisted on playing with less than optimal rest. Even the vaunted “No back-to-back games rule” was ignored on occasion.
Despite its star power, Brooklyn often played down to its opposition level last season, especially on defense, which resulted in 40 games that were within a five-point margin in the last five minutes, tied for the third-most in the league, according to NBA.com. Think about all those times where bottom-feeders like the Cavs and Wizards gave the Nets fits down to the wire and sometimes even into overtime. Not that any one specific extended exertion contributed to Brooklyn’s injury woes, but the cumulative effect probably wasn’t helpful either.
As much as we lauded The Other Guys last season, it turned out that we overrated them terribly, proven beyond a reason of doubt in the Bucks series when Nash went with a six-man rotation that included playing Harden all 53 minutes on one leg in Game 7 because he just couldn’t trust a good chunk of his roster.
In an ideal world, the Nets’ depth signings this offseason will do a better job of allowing Nash to keep his stars fresh for the Main Events. Patty Mills, Paul Millsap, and James Johnson are high basketball IQ veterans who understand the intricacies of the NBA game. Plugging them into larger responsibility roles to fill any void from the absence of any Big 3 member (especially if Irving goes through with his strike on home games because he refuses to be vaccinated) should look a whole lot different than when the Nets were relying on guys like Landry Shamet, Mike James, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot.
So, as we look forward to what is expected to be a glorious 2021-22 campaign for Brooklyn, how important is it really that they capture the top seed?
The correct answer is: Not really, and certainly not at any expense.
I get that Brooklyn’s Big 3 are all hoopers who don’t like to lose. This regular season, though, it’s the organization’s job to protect them from themselves, even if it costs them playoff home court advantage.