When James Harden was traded to the Brooklyn Nets, the motto for the newly formed superteam became quite clear.
“Scary hours.”
For the Los Angeles Clippers, the scary moments came not in a matter of hours, but in mere minutes.
Those scary minutes came in multiple stretches during the Nets’ 124-120 win over the Clippers. The first notable stretch: a 12-2 run by the Nets in the closing minutes of the first half to trim the deficit to one point.
It was “your-turn-my-turn” basketball at its absolute finest, breaking the conventional norms of what typical NBA defenses – let alone a team built to be an elite defensive team such as the Clippers – are used to seeing on a nightly basis.
It’s not every day that you see 3 players on a team combine for 90 points – nearly 73% of the Nets’ total points – as Irving (39 points), Durant (28 points), and Harden (23 points) did. The last time a feat of similar magnitude happened, the league’s preeminent superteam was on the opposite side of the country.
Durant was on that last superteam, and is very much familiar with being surrounded by teammates who could set fire to the basket on a whim. It was what he envisioned when he decided to join Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green to form what was arguably the greatest NBA team ever assembled.
Knowing that feeling, Durant took his talents to the East and sought to create another collection of unrivaled offensive weaponry.
Is this what Durant had envisioned so far?
“Yup,” Durant said after the game, adding a long pause for emphasis.
“You got guys that can do multiple things on the floor,” he continued. “Any coach in America [would] want the ball in their best players’ hands. We got 3 guys that are unselfish [and] that know how to play. I think we made the right plays down the stretch, especially with Kyrie and James controlling the ball. When those guys got it on top, they got the defense at their mercy.”
Mercy was the operative word in this game, in the sense that the Nets had absolutely none of it to show. This was evident during a stretch where the Nets resorted to the nuclear option and let their 3 best players dictate the pace and flow of the game.
In the final 7 minutes of the 4th quarter, the Nets’ dynamic trio scorched the Clippers to the tune of 25 points, starting with this Durant jumper over Nicolas Batum at the 6:41 mark.
This was followed by Irving going on an absolute scoring rampage – a personal 8-0 run to give the Nets a 5-point lead in crunchtime.
Harden then made his presence felt with a stepback three.
With the Clippers desperate to plug the defensive hole that was on the verge of becoming too unsalvageable, they placed Kawhi Leonard on Irving on a switch that they were all too willing to make, a luxury they could afford with the amount of defensive versatility they possess.
But defensive versatility is rendered moot when you can just pass the ball to Durant, a walking get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of a 7-foot scoring machine.
As he has often done to all sorts of hapless defenders, Harden subsequently drew a foul on a three-point attempt and made all of his free throws, extending the Nets’ lead to 9 with 2:36 left in the game. Leonard countered with two free throws of his own.
Durant responded in kind, in what was eerily reminiscent of his game-clinching shots over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 and 2018 Finals that garnered him two Finals MVPs.
The Clippers trimmed the deficit to as little as 2 points, but clutch free throws from Durant and Irving sealed the deal for the Nets, with this win being their loudest statement of the season so far, given how the optics of the Nets’ one-dimensional nature has permeated throughout the collective NBA mindset.
Going into the game, the Nets were considered the 3rd-best offense in the league, putting up an offensive rating of 118.4 points scored per 100 possessions.
Additionally, the Nets’ elite offense has been the main factor in them outscoring opponents by 5.0 points per 100 possessions, 5th-best in the league – an obvious outcome considering the makeup of their roster.
The more concerning aspect, rather, was the Nets’ defense.
Going into the Clippers game, the Nets were the 23rd-ranked defense in the league, with a defensive rating of 113.4 points allowed per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass, a statistics site that eliminates garbage time possessions in order to get a more accurate picture of a team’s efficiency.
Additionally, since they executed the trade to acquire Harden from the Houston Rockets, the Nets have had a defensive rating of 117.9 points allowed per 100 possessions, which ranked 25th in the league over that time period. In the 13 games preceding the trade, the Nets allowed 110.3 points per 100 – 13th in the league.
Compounding the Nets’ defensive woes was the fact that the Clippers were, going into the game, the best offensive team in the NBA, with an offensive rating of 119.3 points scored per 100 possessions, per Cleaning The Glass.
On the surface, it seemed like the Nets had two options: shore up their defense by putting more effort and intensity on that end, or simply win games through their sheer offensive firepower.
Looking at the postgame numbers, it looked like the Nets resorted to the latter option, as they allowed the Clippers to score 120 points per 100 possessions. The main concern with that approach is its sustainability; the Nets cannot count on their offense bailing out their defense on a nightly basis.
However, belying their defensive numbers, the Nets were able to get timely stops and managed to stifle the Clippers’ offensive machine when it mattered, a fact that Nets head coach Steve Nash was all too happy to point out.
“[The Clippers were] a really tough team to defend, and we did a great job,” Nash said. “It’s tricky when teams are constantly taking 20 more shots than you are, but we’ll keep pointing up. We’ll keep getting better, but when they put in the effort like they did tonight, it will be tough to beat.”
Getting better could involve the Nets being more cognizant of when to turn on their defensive switch. On paper, the Nets are not built to be a sturdy defensive team, with Irving and Harden being known as limited defenders and Durant, although an above-average defender himself, being insufficient to be counted on solely as the team’s defensive linchpin.
What also doesn’t help is the fact that Nash and his coaching staff are intent on sticking with their switch-everything defensive scheme, where players switch on every on-ball and off-ball screen in an attempt to stifle movement and to force the offense into stagnant isolation possessions.
The Nets do not possess the kind of versatile defenders who are capable of guarding up and down the positional spectrum. That fact has manifested itself plenty of times during this season, including against the Clippers and Leonard, who took advantage of switches onto smaller defenders to stretch the Nets defense thin.
But as the two backbreaking runs in the game displayed – the 12-2 run just before halftime and the 27-18 run to complete their victory – the Nets have the potential to dig in defensively and force opponents into cold offensive spells, after which they will let their transcendent offense take over and strike with a nigh-unstoppable counterattack.
That is a glimpse of the full potential this team could realize this season, or in seasons to come. The offense has already reached its zenith; the defense still has a steep mountain to climb. It will need to reach a higher point for the Nets to be considered legitimate championship favorites, especially against the likes of the Clippers in a 7-game Finals series or against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.
That is a fact that Nash realizes and is actively working to address.
“The number one goal is to be on the same page [defensively] and to be solid,” Nash said. “If we can be fundamental in our approach and be solid with our schemes, that’s number one or number two… number one is just the pride and competitive spirit.
“We may not profile as a great defensive team, but we can be solid at minimum and take care of things that we can control. They’ve got to guard us as well.”
A fact that the Clippers found out up close and personal, much to their chagrin. – Rappler.com
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