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The Nets just finished a 3-1 preseason that was encouraging, but had some warning signs and red flags. And most were on the defensive end of the floor.
Brooklyn spent the summer bolstering their attack and scored their way to three preseason wins. But sieve-like defense is a worry that could undercut any hope of a surprise season.
“Yeah, that’ll be the most important thing. Offensively we’ll be able to score with the best of them,” Michael Porter Jr. said. “I think offensively is not a problem. [But] if we want to be good, then defensively we’ll have to lock in.”
That’s been the focus since they got shredded in their preseason finale in Miami, and that’s where it will stay right up until Wednesday’s opener against visiting Charlotte.
The Nets were disruptive in preseason victories over the Hornets and 76ers. But they had to overcome a horrid defensive first half to escape in Washington, and couldn’t buy a stop in Miami.
“There’s been two games that we were an aggressive and ball-pressure defensive team where I thought we were pretty good,” coach Jordi Fernández said. “And then two games where we were a poor defensive team with our transition, our rim protection.
“We’ve got to decide who we want to be, and the things that we can control … and do it every game. Don’t rely on shot-making, on things that don’t really matter. Rely on things that are going to make you a winning team.”
That ball pressure has been the deciding factor in when they’ve been stout vs. shredded.
The Nets finished the preseason second worst in the league in opponent field goal percentage (.498) and effective field goal percentage (.588).
But their Defensive Rating wasn’t horrid, mainly because they were top 10 in opponent turnovers, turnover percentage and points off turnovers.
The Nets forced 47 through the first two games, allowing an average of just 99 points. And they harassed Washington into another 15 in the second half of Monday’s win, holding the Wizards to 50 points.
But when foes held onto the ball? Trouble.
“The team that we were in the first two games where we pressured the ball, we created turnovers, that’s what good defensive teams do,” Fernández said. “But in the Washington game that we allowed 70 points in the first half and 50 in the second, that was terrible. Then in the Miami game, the whole game — all the quarters 32-plus points, one of [43] — it’s just not good enough.”
“So, if you think about it, for 10 quarters out of 16 we were good and six were really bad. So we want to stay on the [good side].”
The Nets forced just eight turnovers in that first half at Washington, and allowed 72 points. And when they only forced 15 in Miami, they allowed 144 points and 58.5 percent shooting.
After trading Nic Claxton, shot-blocking was going to be a problem. But the rim protection has looked even more dire, especially when Day’Ron Sharpe got into foul trouble in Miami.
“[Fernández preaches] just executing our staples on defense, controlling that, controlling what needs to be controlled, and doing everything with a purpose, but doing it also hard,” Sharpe said. “So that’s the main thing he preaches. If we could do that for four quarters, we’d give ourselves a good chance to win.”
Brown insists it was less about effort or personnel and more about attention to detail.
“Coach always preaches that we can play hard, but we’ve also got to play smart and attention to detail. That’s something that we’ve been inconsistent at, but we’re going to continue to work at it every single day and fix it,” Mikel Brown Jr. said.
“It’s just little mistakes we could correct. Just being clean in our shifts, being early and often. It’s not that we’re just completely blowing up on coverages; it’s just about having the right mindset, staying consistent throughout the game for all 48 minutes and keep applying that same pressure, that physicality that coach is talking about. It’s just the little things when it comes to that point. We clean those things up, we’ll be fine.”