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The Nets have surprised all season behind an overachieving offense. But their woeful defense has been on the other end of the spectrum, and it is bottoming out.
The team is dead last in the NBA in field goal defense and effective field goal percentage, and bottom five in a host of other metrics. They all point to the same thing: Despite finally getting healthy, the Nets are still struggling on that end of the court, among the worst in the league and getting worse over the past week.
“All the big bodies were in [Friday] and we still did a terrible job of protecting the rim. So it’s just something we got to figure out. We’ve all got to be on the same page,” center Nic Claxton admitted. “I need to do a better job of protecting the rim. My blocks are down this year. But it’s on everyone, just being on the same page with our defense. Our defense isn’t good.”
That’s an understatement. It’s gone beyond not good all the way to not acceptable.
The Nets have allowed 48.9 percent shooting and an effective field goal percentage of 56.8, both worst in the league.
They are second-worst in defensive rebounds (29.7) and blocks (3.9), their rim protection an Achilles’ heel. Poor communication and trying to compensate for that has just given up open 3-point looks.
It was easy to blame that on the lack of big bodies, with earlier injuries to Claxton and backup Day’Ron Sharpe forcing point guard Ben Simmons to play center, and power forwards Dorian Finney-Smith and Noah Clowney also having been in and out of the lineup.
But the Nets have finally gotten healthy. Their defense just hasn’t gotten better. If anything, it’s getting worse.
Rotating to try to protect the paint Friday in Memphis just gave up corner 3s. The result was a 135-119 loss to the Grizzlies.
“We just did not deserve a better outcome. Going to playing defense, you give up 135 points, you don’t deserve to win, that’s for sure,” coach Jordi Fernandez said.
“It’s no excuse. We’ve got our guys back, you know, Nic and DayDay back,” Finney-Smith said. “We’ve got to have a low man to help us. But they do a good job of cutting in the corners, leaving that man on that wing on an island, so if you go help it’s a corner 3 or it’s a back cut. So it’s just tough to guard. But we can’t beat nobody if they score 135 points. I mean, it is what it is.
“And we actually scored a lot of points [Friday]. So if we keep them close to 100 points like we did the first time we played here, we give ourselves a better chance. But yeah, we’ve got to do something about that paint. It’s as a group, especially that second group, they play five-out and it just spread us out a little bit. We’ve got to do a better job communicating on the back side.”
The Nets’ communication last weekend against the Bucks was abysmal down the stretch, and they allowed 57.4 percent shooting and 48.4 from 3-point range.
Friday it was 52.5 and 47.2 against the Grizzlies, all the while getting taunted and trolled by Ja Morant.
“If we don’t want him barking, we’ve got to go out there and fight,” Finney-Smith shrugged. “We can’t just fight with our words, like coach said. We’ve got to go out there and hit them. And they were the first one hitting. They were living in our paint, getting offensive rebounds. So we’ve got to do a better job as a team.”
The Nets allowed 68 points in the paint, an ongoing issue.
They’ve allowed the fourth-most baskets in the restricted area (18.6), and have the super-sized Cavaliers, with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, coming to town Monday.
