After beating the Bulls on January 29th, Brooklyn was riding high at 28-24 – a season-high four games over .500. Since then, the Nets have taken a step back, going 4-9 while the team’s playoff spot has become less secure.
During that 13-game stretch, the Nets have gotten underwhelming production from the four position, losing the rebounding battle while adjusting to a fully healthy roster and juggling rotations for the first time all season.
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Currently the seventh seed in the East, Brooklyn is percentage points behind the Pistons and only up two games on the Magic and Hornets. Detroit (8-2) and Orlando (7-3) have closed the gap with strong 10-game stretches.
Looking ahead, Brooklyn faces three lottery-bound opponents (Dallas, Cleveland, and Atlanta) before a home matchup with the Pistons in the next week before embarking on a seven-game road trip.
“The message is we haven’t done anything yet,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said at practice Thursday. “I know we’re getting some publicity here. It’s like we just have a long way to go, and it screams back at you. We’re going to have to fight tooth and nail to achieve something this year that is above expectation. We’re not there yet. We have a hellacious schedule left.”
Following that proclamation, the Nets went on to lose back-to-back games by double digits to the Hornets and Miami Heat, two teams Brooklyn is jostling with for playoff position in the East.
“We want to be an 82-0 type team,” Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie said Friday. “We want to be a championship team. These last couple of losses, these last couple of games, aren’t indicative of that, so we have to be better.”
One area where the Nets need to be better is the power forward position.
Treveon Graham, who has started his last 20 games played, is dealing with back soreness and has struggled shooting from the field (.372) and beyond the arc (.296) as a starter. At 6-foot-5, Graham is undersized to be starting at the four consistently.
During Brooklyn’s recent 13-game stretch, the Nets have been outrebounded by 6.5 boards per game and have lacked “competitive spirit,” according to Atkinson. As a result, the Nets could turn to rookie Rodions Kurucs. Brooklyn has gone 18-11 when Kurucs starts.
R😱DI@RODIONS1 | pic.twitter.com/xWNGe4FcZq
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) March 3, 2019
For comparison’s sake, the Nets are 10-11 with Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and 12-13 with Jared Dudley in the starting lineup. DeMarre Carroll, who started 73 games for Brooklyn last season, has come off the bench in all 52 games he’s played this season.
Similar to Kurucs, Hollis-Jefferson – Brooklyn’s longest-tenured player dating back to the Billy King era – brings defensive effort and hustle. Dudley is a stretch-four with limited mobility on the defensive end. Carroll can be effective as a small-ball four off the bench periodically, but his 215-pound frame would take a beating in the paint against the East’s stronger fours.
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For more frontcourt rebounding help, the Nets could give Ed Davis more playing time. Davis is third in the league in rebound percentage (career-high 21.7 percent) and offensive rebound percentage (career-high 13.7 percent) and fifth in defensive rebound percentage (career-high 29.7 percent).
Entering Sunday, the Nets have played a league-high 17 games that have been decided by three or fewer points this season (10-7), which further emphasizes the importance of every rebound.
For Atkinson, figuring out his frontcourt rotation and allotting minutes in the backcourt with Dinwiddie, who returned after missing a month with torn ligaments in his right thumb, will be his latest challenge.
“It’s up to me to do a better job of finding how everybody fits in their role,” Atkinson said Saturday. “Right now, we’re a little out of sorts with our roles and minutes distribution and still trying to figure it out. We haven’t kind of found that comfort area where everyone feels comfortable in their role.”
All-Star D’Angelo Russell is one of three players, along with Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook, averaging 24-plus points and 7.5-plus assists since January 1 in a minimum of 15 games played. With that in mind, teams have begun to schematically alter their defensive schemes to take him out of his rhythm.
Opposing teams have begun trapping Russell in pick-and-roll action and forcing the ball out of his hands more frequently. During the YES Network’s television broadcast Saturday, Russell was shown talking with the coaching staff in one huddle discussing possible strategic adjustments while Dudley, one of Brooklyn’s veteran leaders, spoke to several players on the bench as the coaching staff and Russell spoke near the free throw line.
“When you’ve got guys coming back full go to figure out how to throw into the rotation and make it work at the same time I think that’s the struggle right there of figuring it out and trying to win games and win possessions at the same time,” Russell said Friday.
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“I think they trapped DLo and Spencer a lot tonight,” Caris Levert said following Brooklyn’s loss to Miami Saturday. “I definitely think they made the other guys make more plays. I think that was a good adjustment by them. We haven’t really seen that too much this year. We definitely expect to see that more down the stretch of games going forward, so we’ve just got to be better.”
One way to help Russell shake free from traps is to let LeVert handle the ball more as the primary playmaker and let Russell, who ranks third in the East in 3-pointers made (176), become more of a scorer off the ball at times. LeVert can also focus on attacking the basket and improving his 35 percent field goal percentage from the field since returning from a dislocated foot.
😍 @CarisLeVert 😍#WeGoBIG pic.twitter.com/rqpgHu3bOL
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) March 2, 2019
For LeVert, who missed three months with the injury, the hardest part of his return hasn’t been his feet, but rather his head.
“Probably the mental aspect,” LeVert said. “I put in a lot of work physically, but I think mentally being away from the game so long and just trusting the work you put in I think is the hardest part for sure.”
In addition to LeVert, Dinwiddie also has tried to regain his Sixth Man of the Year candidate form after his month-long layoff.
“DLo is playing at a high level,” Dinwiddie said. “Obviously, Caris is working back into form. They’re going to do what they do, and our focus and our sights are solely set on the playoffs and try to win as many games as possible and become a group that not only makes it but strike a little fear into those top seeds heart.”
If the Nets want to reach their goal and make the playoffs, the team has to get more production from the four spot, improve their toughness on the glass and settle into a rotation.
(Top photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)