After the Brooklyn Nets lost for the fourth time in five games on Sunday, coach Kenny Atkinson got right to it, pointing to the team's defense as the difference between being around .500 vs. the team's current 8-13 record going into Wednesday night's game against the Utah Jazz.
"Our defense has got to improve," said Atkinson on Monday. "I told the guys today, two areas where we’re getting absolutely hammered is on the rebounding and putting teams on the free-throw line. I think last night we had a 13-free throw differential. That’s hard. They had eight more shots than us last night and 13 more free throws. It’s just hard to win that way. We’re working on it, that’s all I can promise you. We’re looking at film and hammering it. We only talked about defense today. From the first day of training camp that’s been our emphasis. I’m a little frustrated we’re not doing better there. We’ve definitely identified the problem.”
While the Nets rank 10th in the NBA in offensive rating (110.1), they're 24th in defensive rating (111.0). Over the last five games, beginning against the Clippers in a 127-119 home loss on Nov. 17, that rating has dropped to 115.6.
The Nets are surrendering 26.8 free throws per game, 28th in the league, and their opponents are taking advantage to make a league-leading 21.2 per game. The Nets commit 23.9 personal fouls per game, more than all but three other NBA teams.
“If you look at it, man, we foul a lot," said Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. "So figuring out how to limit the fouls, it comes down to mental, man, staying focused, being locked in, not fouling shooters, not jumping on pump fakes and stuff like that and being a step ahead, whether that’s a duck-in, whether that’s a front, whatever the case may be. They shot, how many free throws yesterday, 20 or 30, something like that. We take those away, give ‘em five, give ‘em 10, we call it a different game.”
The other problem that Atkinson cited is a familiar one -- rebounding. Second-year center Jarrett Allen has increased his rebounding from 5.4 per game to 8.4 per game, and veteran backup center Ed Davis is grabbing a career-high 8.0 boards in just 17.0 minutes per game.
But the Nets are still giving up 11.6 offensive rebounds per game, 25th in the league. And it's all undoing some otherwise solid first-order defensive work: the Nets are 12th in the NBA in opponent's effective field goal percentage (51.3).
"We do a great job obviously of preventing 3s and limiting teams to shooting a lower percentage, or holding them to a lower percentage," said Harris. "But you’ve got to be able to finish off good defensive possessions with rebounding, and we’re towards the bottom in all the defensive rebounding categories. That’s definitely a focal point, or a point of emphasis for us, and we did some rebounding stuff today. But I think it’s something we all have to be cognizant of, making sure that we’re hitting our man, keeping your guy off the glass, and then gang rebounding, five guys coming back to the ball each time and not having guys leaking out for offensive possessions. Everybody’s got to come back and secure the ball.”
GETTING CLOSER NOT ENOUGH
Lesson 1: there are no moral victories in the NBA. So the Nets' recent run of tight finishes isn't something anybody's OK with.
They couldn't hold on to double-digit home leads against the Clippers and Sixers. They came back from double-digit deficits to get within two of the Mavericks in Dallas and four of the Timberwolves in Brooklyn. Only in Miami, where they entered the fourth quarter trailing by four, did the Nets close it out, with a dominant 30-15 run in the final 12 minutes.
"I think we’re good enough to get over the hump," said Kenny Atkinson. "So, frustrated a little that we didn’t at least get one of those, maybe two. So that’s frustrating, especially the two at home, and Dallas we had a chance. There’s a myriad of reasons why we didn’t close it out. It’s infinitely complex. I think it’s missed shots, not getting stops, we can go down and look at every clip and kind of feel my frustration. I think if you look at our point differential, this year and last year, we are better. It’s not 7.8 – we’re not getting blown out – I think it’s 1.6 or something. Hopefully that’s boding well for the future and we’ll do a better job of getting a few more games.”
Much like last year, the Nets are among the league-leaders in close games. Last season they played 50 games that fall under the NBA's "clutch" definition, games within five points in the final five minutes. This year they've played 12 in 21 games, with a 4-8 record.
"That doesn’t really do anything for us, except maybe morale-booster," said Joe Harris. "But what is that? It doesn’t really do anything. If you win ugly, you still win. So it doesn’t really matter. So that’s the whole thing at the end of the day. We’re not content with being in a position where we’re losing games that are hard-fought, or we felt like we were being competitive. There’s not room for that at this level. Either you win, or you lose. And we’ve got to figure out a way to get on the winning side, and executing late down the stretch, and making more winning plays to close out close games.”
ABOUT THE JAZZ
The Jazz arrive in Brooklyn with a 9-12 record having lost four of their last five games. They've missed leading scorer Donovan Mitchell (20.6 ppg) in their last two, but he's expected to play against Brooklyn. The Jazz haven't been as firm defensively as they were last year when they led the NBA with a 102.9 defensive rating. This year they're ranked 13th with a 108.3 mark. But they still present a dilemma for an aggressive driving team like the Nets with the interior defense of 7-foot-1 center Rudy Gobert and 6-10 forward Derrick Favors, whose defensive field goal percentage at the rim is among the league's best. Gobert also leads the NBA in field goal percentage (69.8) and is seventh in rebounding (12.4) and ninth in blocks per game (1.9) in addition to averaging 15.0 points per game.