Early this season, the NBA landscape was shaken up when James Harden was traded from the Houston rockets to the Brooklyn Nets for a historic haul of draft picks and assets. On paper, this trade created the best offensive big three of all time. They have not disappointed in that aspect as when Harden, Irving, and Durant all play, they put up historic scoring numbers.
However, there lies the problem; when they play together. Since the trade, the Brooklyn Nets have played in 17 contests, but their big three has only played in six of those, going 5-1 in those games. Their only loss came to the Cavaliers in double overtime where Collin Sexton had the game of his life and iced the Nets with 15 in the second overtime.
The Net’s problem even when those guys are on the court is not putting the ball in the basket, as the big three and Joe Harris have no problem filling it up. They however have played abysmal defense, including a game where they gave up 149 points in regulation to the Washington Wizards in a monumental collapse down the stretch of that game. They have tried to fix their defensive woes by signing guys who are known for their defense, like Iman Shumpert, Andre Robertson, and Noah Vonleh.
This doesn’t seem to be working because even amidst their current four-game winning streak, they are giving up 115 points per game. The problem here is simple, their defense will never improve if they have to put different lineups on the floor every night. Continuity is arguably the most important part of basketball, and Durant, Irving, and Harden need to learn to play on the court at the same time and how they handle defensive rotations.
That being said, the argument here is that as long as the stars are healthy for the playoffs, it really won’t matter as it is impossible for teams to match up against the star power. This very well could be the case, and we could see a situation similar to the Warriors when they had Kevin Durant and were a great regular season team, but didn’t want to expend that energy to be great and instead opted to save it for the playoffs.
All I know is that all if the Nets don’t work on their team defesne, all it would take in a playoff series is for a team to get smoking hot from behind the three point line for three or four games in a row to knock them off in the playoff series. If they can work their defense rating into middle of the pack range(currently at 25th), I’m sure that would make Nets fans much less nervous going into a playoff series.
Individually, James Harden has been everything he was hyped up to be. He has become the primary playmaker for the Nets and is excelling in that role, dishing out 11.3 dimes per game on average. He has been so great that Kyrie Irving, one of the top five point guards in the league in recent years, has proclaimed Harden the official point guard of the team and relegated himself to the shooting guard.
What Harden brings to this team cannot be qualified, because he can be on the court by himself, AKA without Kyrie and Durant, and the team is able to be competitive with any team in the league. Earlier this week the Nets took on a top five defense in the league, the Suns, with Kyrie and KD sidenlined. Harden was able to lead a starting lineup that had Tyler Johnson featured in a prominent role to a 24 point comeback and secure the win.
Watching the Brooklyn Nets the rest of this season will be fascinating. Will the team decide to go the load management route to ensure their superstars are rested for the playoffs, or will they decide to gain that team chemistry on the court, but risk injury. As a very simple basketball fan who can appreciate defesne, but loves seeing points being scored, I hope that we see KD, Kyrie, and James Harden do exceptional things the rest of this season.
