If the Nets hope to keep away from the Play-In Tournament and retain their standing as an uncontested playoff group, they’re going to have to unravel their rebounding difficulty.
It’s the Achilles heel for a group nonetheless clinging to postseason aspirations within the aftermath of the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving trades.
The Nets can get stops and, at instances, generate high quality offense — however their lack of true depth on the 5 and true dimension within the entrance courtroom leaves them vulnerable to being outworked on the glass.
They rank second to final in rebounding in all of basketball forward of solely the center-less Dallas Mavericks.
“We have to accept it. It’s truth,” head coach Jacque Vaughn mentioned postgame. “It’s staring us in the face. The scouting report says to try to go offensive rebound versus the Nets, and we have to understand that and really do a diligent job of trying to continue to do this together. We can’t do it with two people or three people.”
Such was the case within the Nets’ 108-102 loss to a Denver Nuggets group that ranks middle-of-the-pack in glass cleansing this season. The Nets made a concerted effort to crash the glass within the first quarter, however for Brooklyn, it’s a piece in progress.
For the Nuggets, rebounding is of their DNA. Nikola Jokic is a seven-foot rebounding machine, Aaron Gordon is constructed like a bodybuilder and Michael Porter Jr. makes use of his athleticism to play clean-up across the rim.
Those three Nuggets outrebounded your complete Nets roster by means of the primary three quarters of what grew to become a blowout sport coming into the ultimate interval. Jokic completed with 25 factors, 17 rebounds and 10 assists and Porter Jr. added 28 factors and 9 rebounds.
Here’s the regarding half: This is way from an remoted incident.
The Nets have been outrebounded by 16 their residence loss to the Sacramento Kings, whose All-Star Domantas Sabonis completed with 24 factors and 21 rebounds. They have been outrebounded by one other middle-of-the-pack group of their loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, and have been outrebounded, 49-28, of their street victory over the Nuggets the final time round.
The Nets surprised the Nuggets in a 22-point come-from-behind win that evening. They weren’t as lucky this time round.
“I think it’s the opportunities where we can control the rebounding. We have to. So for instance, the other night against Sacramento: Kevin Huerter cannot have offensive rebounds against us. Kessler Edwards cannot have offensive rebounds against us. Davion Mitchell cannot have offensive rebounds against us,” head coach Jacque Vaughn mentioned forward of tip-off on Sunday.
“Sabonis, he’s gonna have his simply because he’s greater, stronger and that’s the way in which it’s. Jokic, sadly, he’s gonna get some offensive rebounds tonight. It’s gonna occur. Can you remove a few of these the place possibly that dude isn’t as huge as you? And then it isn’t as offset as Jokic will get his quantity of offensive rebounds.
“But we still want everybody to come back, hit, help each other, this is going to be a community of rebounding. The parallel, the silos, can’t happen. We’ve all gotta interact and intersect and come back and rebound. You can’t just be a shooter and don’t rebound. You can’t just be a driver and don’t rebound. You can’t just be a big and don’t rebound. Everybody’s gotta come and rebound.”
And with robust rebounding groups remaining in every of the Nets’ subsequent 4 video games — video games that can outline their seeding and, thus, their season — the strain is on for Brooklyn to discover a approach to win regardless of their greatest shortcoming.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Orlando Magic all profile as greater and stronger groups than the Nets in and across the paint. In Cleveland, it’s the mix of the 2 seven-footers: Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley. In Miami, All-Star middle Bam Adebayo is all the time a headache, and Orlando is the breeding floor for the NBA’s subsequent and greatest experiment with 5 gamers listed 6′10″ or taller who every play important minutes, together with Rookie of the Year frontrunner Paolo Banchero and the 7′2″ phenom Bol Bol.
Mikal Bridges gave the Nets 23 factors on 8-of-18 capturing however recorded only one rebound in 31 minutes of play. Dorian Finney-Smith shot simply one-of-five from the sector and compounded these capturing woes with simply three rebounds. Day’Ron Sharpe grabbed 5 rebounds in eight rubbish time minutes and the tallest Net on the roster, Moses Brown, didn’t play within the first obtainable sport of his 10-day contract.
Vaughn has been preaching that every one gamers, not simply beginning middle Nic Claxton, have to prioritize crashing the glass. Claxton completed with eight rebounds in 31 minutes.
That low quantity led your complete Nets in rebounding, an space Brooklyn should tackle as they try to keep away from the Play-In Tournament.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com