Variety Is The Spice That Embellishes Nets’ Offense
Very little about the Nets’ start to their 2023-24 campaign has gone according to preseason pundits’ scripts. Since the season is not quite a quarter complete, things can obviously change drastically, but we’re very close to where the “small sample size” disclaimer is no longer a required caveat for those proffering cumulative stats to support their conclusions.
Going into Wednesday’s In-Season Tournament addendum game in Atlanta, Brooklyn (10-9) is probably at or a little ahead of their expected pace, though still far below the level of NBA teams in the upper tier. What has been most stunning has been how they’ve gotten here.
Most experts viewed Brooklyn’s defense as potentially elite; their issues were supposed to come from rebounding and offensive production. No longer able to rely upon the unparallelled brilliance of superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to bail out possessions, the Nets were predicted to be helpless in crunch-time situations where one-on-one scoring ability takes over.
Anyone who has taken a passing glance at the numbers has seen that none of the above has been present. As I’ve touched on in recent posts, the Nets’ defense has been strangely shoddy (though it came to life in their last game, a 129-101 rout over visiting Orlando on Saturday that snapped the Magic’s nine-game winning streak) and they are ranked third in the league in rebounding percentage, including a respectable ninth on the more problematic defensive glass.
But what in the holy name of Julius Erving is going on with the Nets’ offense? Brooklyn is averaging a sixth-best 117.5 points per 100 possessions, more than both Irving’s Mavs (seventh) and KD’s Suns (eighth). The Nets’ highest-paid player, Ben Simmons, suited up for just six games before suffering an impingement on the opposite side of the back that was surgically repaired 19 months ago. The nightly rotation has been a revolving door as everyone other than Mikal Bridges and Day’Ron Sharpe has already missed at least one game due to an injury.
According to NBA.com, the Nets aren’t outstandingly efficient in any one particular type of possession—for instance, Brooklyn runs the third-most isolation plays in the league but are middle of the pack with just 0.93 points scored per possession. Only Spencer Dinwiddie has posted a rate over 1.0 among the three Nets with at least 15 isolations this season (Bridges is a horrid 0.76). Also, the Nets may have gained some notoriety for their transition game (they have been credited with the sixth-most fast break points per game), but they’re scoring on less than 50% of their opportunities, a rate better than just seven other teams.
Yet, the Nets are still finding ways to create—and make—open shots. Only three teams have generated more corner three-point attempts than Brooklyn, which they have knocked down at a league-high 47.8% rate. I think that sentence might have sent analytics models into a tizzy.
Overall, Brooklyn is taking the sixth-most 3s in the league, with only the Thunder sporting a higher conversion rate from deep. To be clear, this isn’t just Head Coach Jacque Vaughn’s vision, but also that of the organization headed by General Manager Sean Marks. As soon as Marks took over what was then described as the worst situation in NBA history back in 2016, the Nets then went four consecutive seasons where they were in the top five of the league in three-point attempts per game, efficiency be damned. They took a bit of a break during the superstar era to allow Durant and Irving to operate more out of the mid-range, but once they were traded in February, the three-point volume shot up again--they went from 22nd in attempts per game to seventh over their final 29 games of 2022-23.
Sure, it can look ugly on nights when the shots aren’t going down, like in Game 6 against Boston where they went 17-for-52 (32.7%) from behind the arc. But they’ve only had four other games that saw them shoot below the basketball-reference.com league average of 36.3%--and they won two of those!
From my perspective, the beauty of Brooklyn’s offense this season has been its diversity. Cam Thomas, who has elevated his game to the tune of a 26.1 ppg scoring average, is the NBA’s second-best finisher on drives behind reigning MVP Joel Embiid, according to NBA.com’s points percentage (100 drives minimum), with Bridges (13th) not far behind. Lonnie Walker and Dorian Finney-Smith rank 9th and 13th, respectively, in three-point field goal percentage, mostly from spot-ups. Dinwiddie is ninth in isolation scoring efficiency (25 isos minimum). Center Nic Claxton is ninth in putbacks per game and sixth in overall field goal percentage.
You get the picture. I wouldn’t say that the Nets are doing anything beyond NBA norms when it comes to offensive schemes. They push the pace whenever possible and run a high quantity of standard pick-and-rolls, looking to space the floor with shooters at the ready when help is forced. However, I do credit Vaughn for maintaining a ball-sharing philosophy on most nights, which isn’t as easy as it sounds when five of the team’s top ten players in total minutes this season are in the final year of their contracts.
In Saturday’s game where Finney-Smith and Walker sat out with ailments, Bridges went nuts in the first quarter, scoring 26 points. When he cooled off after halftime, Dinwiddie took over, with some help from Thomas, to keep the Magic from getting closer than a nine-point deficit.
On many nights, the Nets also get solid offensive contributions from wings Cam Johnson and Royce O’Neale, including underrated playmaking ability. This variety is quite a change from recent Nets seasons, when the games were largely determined by the superstars’ point production. No current Net other than Simmons has ever been recognized as an NBA All-Star, and he might not ever reach that level again.
You can feel bad for Simmons’ predicament and miss the few aspects of his unique game where his skillset produces wonder, but in a way, his absence has made it easier for the Nets to run their half-court offense Vaughn’s way. Having one less non-shooter on the floor has opened driving lanes, which decreases the turnover risk. That’s why only Dennis Smith Jr., another poor three-point marksmen, has posted a lower offensive rating than Simmons this season (G-Leaguers exempted).
Simmons was a one-man fast break, so lately Vaughn has had to be more vocal in imploring his players to sustain that up-tempo pace. It has paid off, even if the NBA.com fast break points stats show a dropoff since Simmons’ last game on November 6. The site likely doesn’t count all the possessions where the Nets’ transition didn’t directly lead to a bucket, but it put the opposing defense in a scramble where Brooklyn could eventually exploit a breakdown or a mismatch.
Vaughn will have some tough choices to make if he can ever get all hands on deck. He won’t be able to please everyone’s desire for playing time, nor will he please the fans with his choices. But for now, give him credit for how he has managed to mesh a conglomeration of disparate parts into a cohesive offensive unit.
Now go fix the defense and we might have something that further confounds the preseason prognosticators.