Staggered Stars Lift Nets To Hard-Fought Victory In Toronto
Staggering what a difference a proper stagger makes on the Nets.
With superstar guard Kyrie Irving effectively banished from the team until he chooses to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, the Nets are forced to be overly reliant on the remaining two of their Big 3—Kevin Durant and James Harden—to generate offense. When neither is on the floor for any period, the buckets have been drying up.
Going into Sunday’s 116-103 victory in Toronto, the Nets’ fifth straight win, Brooklyn Head Coach Steve Nash had seen enough of the lineup he had been using in the last three games to eat a few minutes at the start of the second and fourth quarters while KD and Harden simultaneously took their breaks. Though a tiny, tiny sample size of just 11 minutes, you can’t say it was illogical that a unit comprised of LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap, Patty Mills, DeAndre’ Bembry, and Jevon Carter would be outscored by a 23-7 margin.
Not that it mattered, since the Nets captured all three of those contests. However, two of those were over bottom-feeding Detroit and in the other game against Atlanta, Brooklyn had built up a sizable 16-point lead after three quarters that the Hawks could only cut to 11 in the three minutes before Harden checked back in. That lineup was a ticking time bomb, with no real shot creator options at Nash’s disposal (and no, rookie Cam Thomas isn’t ready).
So, I found it odd that Nash on Sunday played four his five starters the entire opening frame with only Carter subbing for Joe Harris, who then joined the bench mob at the start of the second quarter where Carter had previously been. Normally, that’s still an “Oh boy, you might want to close your eyes” sign for Nets fans, but Harris’ five points kept Toronto from forging ahead in that five-minute stretch. However, the momentum had clearly shifted to the Raptors’ favor in that segment and the Nets fell behind by seven at the intermission.
The better move by Nash was to allocate his stars’ second-half minutes so that the Nets would always have either Durant or Harden on the floor. After Brooklyn came back out from the locker room smoking, Nash cut his rotation from 10 to 8 and got Harden out of the third quarter after 9:37 with the Nets up, 77-73.
Instead of a struggle to score points in the fourth quarter, the Nets rode Harden’s 16 points (with no turnovers!) to close out the very satisfying victory. Feisty Toronto, which entered the period down 11, never got closer than within 7 points, after which Harden immediately knocked down a three-pointer with 4:34 remaining. Other than a few careless turnovers against the athletic Raptors’ press, the Nets’ offense didn’t miss a beat in crunch time. And that’s with Durant taking (and, of course, making) just one shot without any free throw attempts in the last six minutes.
Nash wasn’t the only one playing to win on Sunday. Let’s also give Nets starting center Blake Griffin a tremendous amount of credit for a playoff-passion-type of performance in regular season game No. 10. The box score stats (14 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists) just don’t do him justice. He brings a physicality component that is necessary to any winning program, which translates into all the loose balls he gets after, the boxouts, and the screen assists. Griffin’s shotmaking, which started the season way off course (5-for-28 from three-point range), just has to be close to the league average so as to not destroy Brooklyn’s offensive spacing. Griffin knocked down 4-of-6 from deep on Sunday to get him closer to his career mean.
Griffin, who is second in the league in charges taken per game, didn’t snag another victim on Sunday, but he has seemingly inspired his teammates to join him in sacrificing their bodies for the cause as the founder of “The Blue Collar Boys Club,” where he and Harris celebrate each charge by putting on an imaginary hard hat. The big postgame news on Sunday was that Mills’ application into the Club was approved, though Griffin said the process is only just beginning for Durant, who took his first hit of the season in the arena where he experienced his career lowlight of the ruptured Achilles during the 2019 NBA Finals.
As of this writing, Nash hasn’t confirmed any consequences from such a hard-fought win, though it wouldn’t be shocking if certain players sat out Monday night’s back-to-back in Chicago. The Nets (7-3) will then play every other day until they close out their six-game road trip on Sunday in Oklahoma City.
As Nash continues to experiment with so many new pieces to a puzzle that can only be solved by an NBA Championship, he has to do his best to make sure his two stars get to April in one piece. In that regard, to keep Harden’s minutes down in this stretch of games as he’s still not 100% back to his pre-hamstring strain version from last season, Nash would be wise to pull Harden off the court even earlier in his first-and-third-quarter runs. That way, the Nets can still execute their stagger to perfection, but without undue strain.