This is what occurs if the Nets aren’t the hardest-playing staff in all of basketball: a 44-point loss to the East’s No. 11 Chicago Bulls recent out of nine-day NBA All-Star break layoff.
The Net offense was anemic in a legendary poor efficiency towards the Bulls on Friday. Brooklyn mustered simply 29 factors within the first half — tying the Cleveland Cavaliers for a season-low — and didn’t attain the 49-point mark for fewest factors scored by a staff in a sport in NBA historical past till the fourth quarter.
“We have to be the hardest-playing team in the NBA,” head coach Jacque Vaughn stated for the second time publicly for the reason that trades that despatched Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks and Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns. “When we don’t? This can happen, for sure, when we’re not playing as hard as the team across from us.”
Offense was all the time going to be scarce for a staff now looking for its new id after buying and selling away two of the sport’s most prolific scorers. The protection, nevertheless, with no participant beginning shorter than 6-5 and 4 of the 5 present starters recognized for defensive chops, was presupposed to be far forward of the offense.
That wasn’t the case, at the least not towards the Bulls on Friday, making for an ideal storm when coupled with Brooklyn’s sputtering offense by means of the primary three quarters.
The Bulls’ lead ballooned to 50 on the prime of the fourth quarter earlier than Cam Thomas and Seth Curry — who mixed to attain 41 factors, greater than all 5 Nets starters mixed — lit it up in rubbish time.
“With that group that starts going into the game, I think their defensive rating was like 88 or something crazy when those five are together. That’s insane,” Vaughn stated postgame. “So for us to surrender 30 factors principally within the first quarter, it simply doesn’t add up. That’s simply not matching.
“So I didn’t overreact with the guys. I said I’ve seen these before in my career going into the All-Star break and coming out of the All-Star break. We ended up being the culprit of coming out of the All-Star break not ready.”
In many respects, it’s comprehensible why a Nets group assembled mere days in the past struggled so drastically towards a Bulls staff that not solely has had the identical core collectively for 2 seasons, but additionally boasts an offense powered by two stars in DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine.
Four of the Nets 5 starters arrived in Brooklyn both simply earlier than or instantly after the Feb. 9 NBA commerce deadline. Those gamers — Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson — spent elements of their All-Star break uprooting their lives from their earlier houses and settling into life in Brooklyn.
Bridges, for instance, was in Salt Lake City for a number of days doing occasions for All-Star Weekend, then returned to Phoenix to pack his garments and produce his Labrador Retriever again to Brooklyn. He stated he’s not a fan of packing and that he’s not good at transferring.
Dinwiddie had been by means of this course of twice earlier than, first with the sign-and-trade that despatched him from Brooklyn to the Washington Wizards, then the following deal that despatched him from D.C. to the Dallas Mavericks.
Dinwiddie lives in Los Angeles and spent a lot of his break transferring issues from Dallas to his storage unit again house. He additionally offered one his automobiles as a result of he’s moved again to Brooklyn and doesn’t must drive as a lot.
That’s simply the off-court side. Life on the court docket is ten occasions extra difficult.
Bridges and Dinwiddie must assume Irving and Durant’s respective roles — or at the least attempt — if this rendition of the Nets are going to retain its present standing as an Eastern Conference playoff staff.
Dinwiddie shot 0-of-6 from the sphere for 2 factors. Bridges shot 4-of-10 for 13 factors.
It doesn’t assist that the Nets exited the All-Star break with the seventh-toughest schedule in all of basketball, both. They have misplaced their final three highway video games handily (by 43 at Boston, by 18 at Madison Square Garden, and by 44 Friday night time) and play eight of their subsequent 10 on the highway, together with Sunday’s 3 p.m. matchup towards Trae Young’s Atlanta Hawks earlier than internet hosting the No. 2 Milwaukee Bucks at Barclays Center on Tuesday.
The Hawks scored 81 factors within the first half towards the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday. The Nets didn’t rating 81 factors till the three:22 mark of the fourth quarter.
“Guys had a lot going on, and they had a lot going on before the All-Star break and during the All-Star break trying to get their lives in order,” Vaughn stated. “OK. There you go. Now, life’s in order, now. It’s time. And that’s what we talked about those two days of practice — it’s time. There is no wasting. Like, if you’ve gotta speed up the process, then we’ve gotta work on speeding up the process. That’s all of the above. That’s your life, that’s your responsibility. That’s being part of the team. We need to speed it up.”
“We understand that we’re fighting an uphill battle in this, but we’re still pros and we have a job to do,” Dinwiddie added. “You can’t make excuses. You got to go out there and play the game. With a high effort level — and I don’t care if we just met yesterday — like 40 points is unacceptable. It’s as simple as that.”
As a lot because the loss falls on the gamers, it should equally fall on Vaughn’s shoulders. He signed a recent contract extension reported to maintain him in Brooklyn by means of the 2026-27 NBA season through the All-Star break — and responded by teaching the one of many worst losses any staff has sustained all 12 months.
“So it’s an unfortunate lesson for us. I hope we learn the lesson extremely quick. And tell [Bulls] coach Donovan to send me his practice plan from the All-Star break,” Vaughn stated. “Their guys were spry, they had juice, you give them credit. I told them we have to own this loss, so give Billy a lot of credit for having his group ready.”
Two of the staff’s most confirmed scorers and their greatest three-point shooter come off the bench in favor of a lineup that leans on defensive versatility.
The Nets are now not that includes a participant who can break down a protection at will, save for the minutes Thomas performs for Vaughn. After suggesting Thomas may see a lowered function and outwardly tabbing Curry because the staff’s backup level guard, Vaughn performed Thomas a team-high half-hour. Thomas scored 22 factors — Dinwiddie and Bridges mixed for 15 — however solely scored three factors on free throws within the first half, together with Brooklyn’s twenty ninth level of the night time, earlier than coming alive within the third and fourth quarters.
If Vaughn goes to lean closely on a defense-first lineup, he’s going to must be extra inventive to find methods to generate high quality offense.
Some photographs had been open seems to be that didn’t fall. Others had been the byproduct of a sputtering offense that carelessly turned the ball over and didn’t generate any fluidity.
If that is what the Nets are going to appear to be, the playoffs are a pipe dream. With 23 video games left within the common season, the Nets are holding onto the fifth seed by a thread. They are a sport in entrance of the Knicks, two-and-a-half video games in entrance of the Miami Heat, and in the event that they fall to seventh, the Nets should survive a sudden-death Play-In Tournament towards groups with extra offensive weapons than them.
“The multiple efforts everyone talks about [usually] come on the defensive end of the floor, but for us it’s gonna come on the offensive end of the floor,” Vaughn stated. “So I might be a decoy, I might just have to run into a player to create some sort of momentum for our group, and I might not get the rock. We’ve gotta be OK with that. So it’s the multiple efforts on the offensive end of the floor that we’re gonna have to work on.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com