PHILADELPHIA — The Nets must discover a approach to play Dorian Finney-Smith extra playoff minutes, and quick — even when it requires fixing a math downside.
Finney-Smith is among the crew’s most bodily gamers, and his prolonged court docket presence is required for a Nets crew combating the 76ers’ physicality of their first-round playoff matchup in opposition to the Sixers.
The problem? The Nets additionally want measurement to match up in opposition to celebrity massive man Joel Embiid. The largest participant on Brooklyn’s roster is reserve massive man Day’Ron Sharpe.
Vaughn says Finney-Smith and Sharpe are splitting the identical minutes, a improvement since Finney-Smith performs each the 4 and small-ball 5 whereas Sharpe performs backup 5 solely.
“You’ve got the full question of, ‘Do you play Day’Ron?’” head coach Jacque Vaughn mentioned forward of tipoff in Game 2 in opposition to the Sixers on Monday. “Day’Ron is supposedly one of our bigger dudes also.”
Finney-Smith performed 18 minutes in opposition to the Sixers in Game 1. He hit each of his makes an attempt from downtown and guarded numerous Sixers’ scorers, together with each Embiid and star guard James Harden.
Sharpe performed 17 minutes off the bench, the primary playoff minutes of his early profession, and other than biting on a pump faux that despatched Embiid to the road for 2 free throws, the second-year massive man out of North Carolina performed nicely. He tallied six factors, six rebounds and 4 assists, punctuating his evening with a chase-down block on Harden that he pinned on the backboard.
“Are you gonna give the whole 36 [minutes] to Doe, or you gonna split it 18 and 17 kinda like we did with Day’Ron?” Vaughn mentioned on Monday. “That’s the question we have. And so can we use both of those guys to be physical and aggressive in those minutes? And whatever minutes it is, you have to step up and play physical.”
Finney-Smith, nevertheless, had the very best internet ranking of any Nets participant in Game 1.
The Sixers solely outscored the Nets by two within the 18 minutes he was on the ground. For reference, they outscored the Nets by 13 in minutes Royce O’Neale performed.
O’Neale is normally one in all Vaughn’s first substitutions and historically checks in for Finney-Smith within the first quarter.
“I mean, whatever coach needs me to do,” Finney-Smith mentioned after shootaround on the Wells Fargo Center Monday morning. “I just want to win. So you know, if he feels like [there are] other guys out there that can contribute to winning, then I can’t — I ain’t got nothing to say.”
Increasing Finney-Smith’s workload may be an possibility for Vaughn to fight grizzled ahead P.J. Tucker.
Tucker gave the Nets matches in Game 1: He performed 25 minutes and grabbed 5 offensive rebounds, hit two threes, recorded 5 steals and dished two assists.
“It’s gonna be a physical game. We’ve got to want it to be physical and expect it to be physical,” Finney-Smith mentioned Monday morning. “So we’ve got to meet that challenge. P.J. — I feel like P.J. was…he affected the game just by his aggression and his activity, and we’ve just got to match it.”
Finney-Smith averaged slightly below 28 minutes per recreation since his mid-season commerce to Brooklyn. The Nets boasted a 7-2 regular-season document in video games he hit not less than two threes.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com