BOSTON — Offensive rebounds, turnovers, poor transition protection, and touches for Seth Curry, all underscored by a very poor taking pictures night time for Kevin Durant.
The movie from the Nets’ one-point, buzzer-beating defeat in Game 1 exhibits a crew that fought exhausting for about 44 minutes. But a three-minute stretch on the prime of the third quarter and the ultimate minute of regulation unraveled a valiant effort and spoiled a recreation the Nets virtually stole at TD Garden.
Now it’s again to the drafting board. It’s again to the movie room for a crew with changes to make for Game 2.
THE NETS NEED TO CREATE MORE ‘EXOTIC’ TOUCHES FOR SETH CURRY
Curry scored or assisted on all six of the Nets’ opening factors in Game 1. He scored as soon as on a pull-up mid-range leap shot, once more on a mid-range pull-up utilizing an Andre Drummond display, and located Drummond with a ravishing dump-off after drawing two defenders on a drive to the rim.
Curry scored seven factors on 3-of-3 taking pictures from the sector in his first eight minutes. Yet whereas Durant and Kyrie Irving every performed greater than 40 minutes, and Bruce Brown tallied 37, Curry solely performed 30. After the primary eight minutes, he solely tried 4 extra area objectives, didn’t make any of them and completed with simply 9 factors.
That’s partially due to Jaylen Brown’s hawking protection, but additionally as a result of the rest of Curry’s area objective makes an attempt got here on possessions that required him to generate his personal offense in isolation.
In reality, the Nets ought to use Curry how they use Joe Harris: run their marksman off of a flurry of off-ball screens and let the chips fall the place they could, be it a shot for Curry or Curry making a search for a teammate.
Good issues occur when Curry touches the ball. The Nets must run extra off-ball motion to get him the rock.
CONSIDER MATCHING SIZE WITH SIZE
The Celtics begin a pair of bigs in Al Horford and Daniel Theis, the identical massive males Bruce Brown stated the Nets ought to assault with Boston’s beginning heart Robert Williams out with a knee harm.
The predictable ensued: Nic Claxton’s newfound “grown-man strength” was no match for Horford, 35, or Theis, 30, and Steve Nash solely performed Andre Drummond 17 minutes. Horford grabbed six offensive rebounds, Theis grabbed 4, Marcus Smart grabbed two, whereas the Nets as a crew solely secured 5.
The Celtics out-rebounded the Nets, 43-29, and generated 18 second-chance factors to Brooklyn’s 11.
If solely the Nets had one other ahead, simply barely greater, to play among the Brown minutes. Unfortunately, that participant was the playoff-tested James Johnson, who the Nets waived to make room for Kessler Edwards within the playoff rotation.
Johnson is now a figment of the Nets’ creativeness, and if they’re going to match Boston’s measurement, inserting Blake Griffin makes probably the most sense.
Nash has been hesitant to play Griffin as a result of he believes Griffin can solely play heart in at the moment’s NBA. But the six-time All-Star performed the 4 alongside Drummond throughout their shared time on the Detroit Pistons, and has performed the 4 alongside Claxton a number of instances this season and final.
TRANSITION DEFENSE
The Nets have been a poor transition protection crew all season, and that has spilled into the playoffs, at the very least for Game 1.
And sadly for the Nets, transition begins when the Celtics inbound the ball as a result of beneath Ime Udoka, they push the ball quick and reap the benefits of unsettled defenses.
The Nets, nonetheless, have a scouting division that is aware of this. They ought to know the Celtics are going to maneuver the ball up the court docket rapidly. On paper, the Celtics solely beat the Nets in fastbreak factors, 21-17, however these numbers don’t do the paltry Nets’ protection justice.
KEVIN DURANT HAS TO BE BETTER
The numbers converse for themselves. The Nets turned the ball over seven instances within the first quarter alone and 16 instances all night time. Durant, flustered by Boston’s trapping protection, gave the ball away extra instances (6) than some other participant in Game 1.
“They did a good job of forcing me away and then helping in the paint,” he stated, shaking his head. “I’ve just gotta be more fundamental in my moves.”
That can’t occur, not towards a crew as dynamic defensively as Boston, and definitely not for Durant, who is just weeks faraway from decreeing himself an underrated passer after setting a brand new profession excessive with 16 assists in a recreation.
Durant completed with simply three assists to 6 turnovers and shot 9-of-24 from the sector for 23 factors.
And but this was merely a one-point recreation, a win Nets fumbled within the ultimate 40 seconds of regulation.
Durant missed a ton of makeable photographs, however the movie exhibits the Nets can do extra to generate environment friendly, unique seems for him. Instead he usually settled for isolation pull-up jumpers. These are seems he ought to have made, however Nash and the teaching employees ought to look to make them simpler.
“I feel like teams are going to be designed to take away some of my catches and my opportunities,” Durant stated after Game 1. “I’ve been dealing with it for a while, so it’s on me to keep playing through it.”
Durant, very like Irving, nonetheless, is a tough-shot maker, and he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer due to his lengthy historical past of elevating his recreation within the playoffs. That’s what the Nets will want — for Durant to lift his recreation — in the event that they’re going to flee this first-round sequence towards a Boston crew able to legitimize themselves by knocking out a up to now illegitimate title contender.
“Nothing to overthink with Kevin Durant,” stated Irving. “We know who he is.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com