Kevin Durant stated he needed to “beat the snot out of” the New Orleans Pelicans within the season opener.
It was the Pelicans who did the beating and the Nets who left boogers throughout their dwelling flooring.
The Nets walked out of Barclays Center battered, bruised and with their tails between their legs after taking a thumping on opening night time. They by no means led, solely held the momentum as soon as — when slicing into the deficit getting into halftime — and trailed by as many as 26 of their 130-108 loss to the Pelicans on Wednesday.
“They beat us in every category tonight,” head coach Steve Nash stated after the sport. “It’s really about the competition level and raising it now that the season’s here, and that was a great kind of warning shot of what the standard is.”
There’s lots to remove from a sport the Nets (0-1) misplaced in, as Nash stated, each class. For starters, they don’t have the scale to really compete with larger groups, as evidenced by the Pelicans’ 22-board benefit within the rebound margin and the whopping 36-4 disparity in second-chance factors.
Nets basic supervisor Sean Marks selected to not go after a lumbering huge man this previous offseason to provide the Nets the scale they misplaced when Andre Drummond signed with the Chicago Bulls. While the Knicks had signed seven-footer Isaiah Hartenstein — who stuffed in properly in his opener towards Grizzlies’ bruiser Steven Adams whereas Mitchell Robinson was in foul bother — the Nets began Nic Claxton and introduced second-year huge man Day’Ron Sharpe off the bench.
It didn’t work.
Jonas Valanciunas is without doubt one of the strongest facilities in all of basketball, and ‘ Williamson’s measurement and energy precedes his title. The Pelicans in the end out-rebounded the Nets, 61-39, a margin equal to the 22-point deficit within the remaining rating.
“[We’ve got to] box out, put a body on people, not let them get in our paint on defense,” Durant defined after the sport. “You let a team get in your paint, you leave your guys on the perimeter, now they’re crashing for the glass, so we’ve got to keep the ball out the paint. [If] they’re shooting over us, then their team’s got no choice but to get back on defense instead of crashing, so we’ve just got to keep teams out of the paint.”
The Nets don’t seem to have a passable reply for what they will do otherwise in future matchups towards different huge groups, as a result of boxing out doesn’t all the time work when the opponent is flat-out stronger. Those mis-matchups are going to come back usually given the panorama of the Eastern Conference: the Bucks, Celtics, 76ers and Cavaliers are every larger than the Nets, and every of these groups challenge to face in-between their championship hopes.
Aside from the rebounding disparity, there was a transparent drop-off in effort — as within the Pelicans flat-out outworked the Nets all night time lengthy. It was extra of the identical from final season, and the season prior, the place the Nets wouldn’t deliver the struggle till an opponent punched them within the mouth.
The Pelicans, extra precisely, headbutt the Nets sq. within the nostril. Their effort mirrored in each class: extra assists, fewer turnovers; higher offensive stream, extra defensive depth.
“This is a grown man’s league and the most physical team wins, and New Orleans came in with intent to show us why they’re going to be in the hunt for championships in the next few years,” Kyrie Irving stated postgame. “They have a good foundation with Brandon Ingram and Zion [Williamson] and then add in a defensive-minded player like Herbert [Jones] and [then] CJ McCollum and they all were clicking tonight. You see just the spread out of the scoreboard. They did everything.”
Which brings us to the worst a part of the night time: sadly, it was Ben Simmons.
Simmons fouled out after simply 23 minutes and totaled solely 4 factors, 5 rebounds and 5 assists. He didn’t appear to be the participant the Nets envision because the engine each on offense and protection. Instead, that engine sputtered and the Nets broke down.
Simmons, in fact, was enjoying in his first official common season sport in over a yr after sitting out the complete 2021-22 NBA season citing psychological well being points and a decrease again harm that required offseason surgical procedure. He, his teammates and the group are bullish on a season the place, like effective wine, he’ll regularly enhance because the season progresses..
“It takes time. Having back surgery and being away from the game for a year, there’s little things that your mind might tell you to go do something, but your body’s not wanting to go do that,” he stated postgame. “But those are the habits, that’s something that I just need to continue to focus on and be aggressive regardless of the result.”
As of now, time is on the Nets’ aspect. This was solely Game 1 of 82, and the Nets missed two key gamers — sharpshooters Joe Harris (foot soreness) and Seth Curry (ankle surgical procedure rehab) — in addition to a wild card in rehabbing ahead T.J. Warren (foot harm rehab).
The loss — the lopsided nature of their defeat, that’s — is a reminder that this season gained’t be a stroll within the park. The Nets have all of the expertise on paper, nevertheless it’s going to take a yr’s value of video games to construct the chemistry and cohesion wanted to beat the league’s elite.
It’s potential, so long as they don’t fracture from inside throughout the tough stretches.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com