Nets In Middle Of Stretch That Provides Opportunity To Turn Corner, But Will They?
This year has been far from easy for the Nets as they sit at the eighth seed in the East and six games below .500 at 20-26. You can even say it’s surprising after having arguably the best offseason in the league.
The Nets picked up both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant in free agency and signed them both to max contracts. Between the two they have three NBA championships, 16 All-Star appearances and nine All-NBA team selections. The Nets also added some role players to deepen the roster. Now we all know about Durant’s Achilles injury that he suffered in the NBA Finals last year, but hopes were still high this year with a clearly improved roster.
After finishing 42-40 and going into the playoffs with the sixth seed last season, Brooklyn got bounced in just five games by the Philadelphia 76ers.
Although their time in the postseason was brief it certainly wasn’t a wasted season for the Nets, as they definitely had a lot to take away from the year. Comparing the 2017-18 campaign to the 2018-19 one was like night and day.
They went from having the 21st ranked offense and 22nd ranked defense to having the 19th ranked offense and the 14th ranked defense. This leap was also in the midst of coach Kenny Atkinson going from his second to third year coaching this team, so the continuity was translating on to the court.
Unfortunately compared to last year things have went downhill both on the court and off the court.
For starters, the Nets have the 24th ranked offense and the 14th ranked defense in the league. So they got worse offensively and remained right in the middle of the pack defensively. In addition to the on the court play a few things have occurred that arguably have also played a role in Brooklyn having such a lousy record.
One of their newest faces on the roster, Wilson Chandler, was suspended for 25 games for testing positive for PEDs. Their star player this season, Kyrie Irving, missed 28 games (26 due to a shoulder impingement) because of injuries, and those injuries have been questioned. Lastly, the Nets have been inconsistent when it comes to playing both good defense and offense.
All of that has put them in the tough spot that they’re in now with only 20 wins out of the 46 games that they have played. Quite frankly those 20 wins aren’t too impressive when you consider the fact that only five of those matchups were against teams that are currently above .500.
Due to what has been a long season for Brooklyn they now have to turn a corner going forward if they want to not just make it into the playoffs but to actually compete by not facing the one seed. In other words they must win the majority of the games that they’re “supposed to win” and at least a good portion of the ones that they’re not expected to win.
Well fortunately for the Nets, if this same notion is on the minds of their players it’s the perfect timing, because they’re currently in a stretch of seven games against teams all below .500. This provides them with the perfect opportunity to get ahead. These teams are the Pistons (who they’ve played twice), Knicks, Bulls, Wizards, Suns and Warriors. All of these teams are well below .500. The closest team to Brooklyn’s record is the Suns, which have a 20-27 record.
With three games down and four to go currently the Nets are 2-1 in this stretch. The next matchup is tomorrow against the Chicago Bulls. This should be a competitive game because January hasn’t been kind to either of them so both squads are hungry. The Bulls are 6-10 in January thus far and the Nets are 4-10.
