Vaughn Helps Nets Bounce Back From Irving Bombshell, Deep Early Deficit To Beat Wiz
During Saturday’s excruciating first half that saw the Nets fall behind by as many as 23 points to the mediocre Wizards at home, I replied to a Nets fan who was knocking Brooklyn Head Coach Jacque Vaughn on Twitter with “No coach can win with this team.”
Needless to say, the tweet did not age well. The Nets furiously rallied back into the game during the second half and pulled out a 125-123 victory.
At the time of the original posting, Brooklyn was looking like a Dead Team Walking. Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, and T.J. Warren were all sidelined with injuries while Kyrie Irving was excused earlier in the day with what was listed as a sore calf. Of course, it’s easy to speculate that the injury and Irving’s bombshell trade request from Friday were more than coincidental.
The ten available players, which would dwindle to eight when Markieff Morris and Seth Curry were ruled out with injuries early in the third quarter, opened Saturday’s contest as if they were in a state of shock from the Irving news. The defense versus a club that was missing leading scorer Bradley Beal was abominable, surrendering 44 points in the first quarter a game after falling behind, 46-16, after one frame in Brooklyn’s previous outing in Boston.
However, unlike that Boston massacre, the Nets were not toast. Now, the Wizards ain’t the Celtics and it took a fortunate confluence of events (Washington’s 21.6 points per game scorer forward Kyle Kuzma stepped on a foot in the second quarter and did not return and big man Kristaps Porzingis fouled out with 2:51 remining after torturing Brooklyn with 38 points) for the Nets to complete the comeback, but this was still a very impressive win for a team that finished the game missing players that aggregated about $128.5 million of salary cap space.
Credit Vaughn for keeping the Nets (32-20, 5-7 since KD’s MCL sprain) somewhat afloat, unlike last season when the team fell apart at the seams under Vaughn’s predecessor Steve Nash during Durant’s 22-game absence. These Nets adjust as the game progresses, benching regulars who don’t have the juice on a particular night (In Saturday’s case, Joe Harris) and mixing up defenses when getting bludgeoned.
With such a short bench, Vaughn had no choice but to roll with certain players who had mostly been out of Brooklyn’s rotation at full strength. Edmond Sumner started in Irving’s point guard spot and responded with a career high 29 points (rebounding nicely after bricking three three-point attempts in the first four minutes) while Cam Thomas came off the bench and went nuts in the second half by tallying 30 of his 44 points, also a career high and matching a feat by only seven other All-Stars who reached that point total in 29 or fewer minutes in NBA history.
Thomas’ night got off to an inauspicious start when, on his first defensive possession, he allowed Wizards guard Kendrick Nunn to blow past him without much effort before he posterized Nets center Day’Ron Sharpe for an and-1. Vaughn called a timeout soon after and presumably corrected Thomas’ technique/mindset because Thomas wasn’t so blatantly victimized thereafter.
In addition, the Nets got great minutes off the bench from another player who has mostly been an afterthought—Patty Mills. The veteran contributed 13 points, but to me, his defense was more of a factor in the comeback despite the absence of common box score stats.
Mills was Brooklyn’s best screen navigator and, since Washington often targeted him in attempts to get his 6-foot, 180-pound frame switched onto bigger screeners, that ability to get around the picks enabled the Nets to mix in more drop coverages, where center Nic Claxton could station himself in the paint to more effectively protect the rim and rebound. The Nets defensive rating by half, per NBA.com: 137.7 points allowed per 100 possessions in the first half; 96.2 in the second half.
This was the second game where Vaughn had his “stay-ready group” actually ready when called upon to perform in an emergency situation—the Nets upset host Indiana on December 10 on the back end of a back-to-back with about eight core rotation players taking the night off.
Most of all, Vaughn deserves credit for not letting a defeatist attitude slip into the Nets locker room through all the chaos of the season, especially during these last 12 games without their transformational superstar. When it looked like the team was spiraling last month during a four-game losing streak, they bounced back with terrific wins at Utah and Golden State. A lackluster loss at home to Detroit was followed by a solid effort in beating the rival Knicks.
Every win Brooklyn banked during this stretch was huge, since the degree of difficulty will be ratcheted up this week with home games against the Clippers, Suns, Bulls and Sixers. Will Irving be available for any of them, or are the reports that a trade is imminent accurate? What is KD’s status, both physically and in his head space if Kyrie is dealt?
One thing is known—unlike this past summer when Durant explained why he initiated his own trade request before later rescinding it, he can’t take issue with his club’s “habits” under Vaughn during this injury recovery period.