The epilogue to the Brooklyn Nets’ season has some nice potential.
With ESPN estimating the Nets to have a less-than-1% chance of catching the Atlanta Hawks to make the East’s Play-In Tournament, we can assume the story has been told. It ended bleakly, sometime around mid-March losses to four of the NBA’s worst teams. Thus, their 2023-’24 campaign will be remembered mostly as disappointing or frustrating, the rest as forgettable.
But the epilogue is a stretch without expectations, a three-week run of contributions from rookies and role players. Better yet, it’s a stretch where wins and losses truly take a backseat to minor developments, like Cam Thomas’ passing or Trendon Watford’s 3-point shooting. To that end, it’s a taste of the rebuilding basketball Nets fans have been yearning for all season.
The irony, of course, being that care-free basketball can lead to more wins.
The Brooklyn Nets looked care-free, but not careless, during the first quarter against the Chicago Bulls on Friday night. They raced out to a 27-21 lead, buoyed by 6-of-13 shooting from three without committing a turnover.
Noah Clowney also played the first of his 15 minutes off the bench, quickly providing some of the cheerful moments you might see in a rebuild. The 19-year-old knocked down a three from the wing immediately upon checking in, then made a rookie mistake during the unenviable task of boxing out Andre Drummond Clowney did not record a box-score stat outside of two missed shots and three fouls after his instant 3-pointer, but all experience is valuable experience.
The fun soon ended in the second quarter, which the Bulls won, 31-20, to take a five-point lead into the break. Brooklyn stopped hitting threes, but more importantly, their possession quality dipped dramatically.
The Bulls attacked the Nets’ most sensitive vulnerability, applying constant defensive pressure without fear of repercussion against a team with subpar passing ability and no true star. Billy Donovan’s squad trapped the pick-and-roll, showed early in the short-roll, brought aggressive nail help, jumped passing lanes … anything you can do to fluster an offense, they did it, and did it successfully.
It appeared as if this page of the epilogue would mirror the season, where a sluggish offense turned the story to a tragedy before the third act.
But then Brooklyn’s offense exploded for the final 24 minutes, scoring 39 points in each quarter; basketball can be funny like that. On his way to another double-double, Nic Claxton grabbed an offensive rebound and put-back (erasing some of the bitter taste from his 3-of-10 performance at the stripe) to start the scoring in the third quarter. After a couple more possessions, Head Coach Kevin Ollie called a quick timeout.
He said he told his team to just “relax. It’s like every shot in the first half was like the world was on our shoulders.”
Then, the Nets hit four straight triples, and never looked back.
Some of it was the pace of their offense, which improved dramatically from a sluggish second quarter. They weren’t just pushing the ball up quickly, but getting into actions with force and intention. More of it, though, was just insane shot-making. I mean, unbelievable shot-making. Laughable shot-making.
The Brooklyn Nets shot 18-of-24 from deep in the second half; Cam Thomas and Dennis Schröder zig-zagged their ways into step-backs over outreached hands, Dorian Finney-Smith finally got off the schneid to hit two in a row, Mikal Bridges sprinted around the arc into his looks. Every single Net besides the centers Claxton and Day’Ron Sharpe, who played just five first-half minutes, hit a trey.
“That was actually crazy,” said Thomas of the explosion. “The first half, you wouldn’t have expected that. It just shows, just keep playing the full game, shots are gonna fall eventually. They just told me were 18-of-24 from three in the second half, like, you’re not gonna lose too many games like that.”
Schröder and Bridges each finished 7-of-11 from beyond, finishing with 27 and 25 points, respectively. Yet, neither of them led the team in scoring; that was Thomas of course, as the third-year guard scored 28 on a comparatively pitiful 5-of-9 from deep. Still, he saw it as the utmost team win: “When you’re getting stops like that and everybody’s getting it rolling from behind the arc, I mean, it’s contagious. And then everybody just feeds off that.”
Ollie, like every other head coach, has often implored his team not to draw their energy from shot-making, but to rely on more stable principles of defense and rebounding. Which sounds great in theory, of course, but freaking-18-of-24 from three? It’s no surprise the Nets ultimately separated from the Bulls in the fourth quarter, where they held their guests to just 23 points.
Still, Bridges didn’t see the offensive explosion that way, saying Brooklyn’s effort indeed started on the other end: “We was getting stops coming out of that third quarter, besides right at the beginning. I think all them shots came from confidence that we’ll get stops. You know, I think they scored 19 — or 23 — that fourth, but we were just playing good defense. I think that’s what it was. You know, and then we make the shots and get stops, it’s gonna spread out a little bit.”
His head coach was equally pleased, pointing to the ball movement that led to many open looks, and the defense that shut down every Bull but DeMar DeRozan, who finished with 31 points.
“We knocked down shots, but it was awfully beautiful execution, making the next pass, surrendering yourself for the team,” said Ollie. It was just beautiful to watch. “That third quarter, and then to back it up in the fourth quarter with 39 points again, then to hold them to 23 points, not get discouraged with DeRozan going off a little bit, try to change up the defenses a little bit … They did a great job. We were due for one of these games.”
Brooklyn’s early-season victory over the Phoenix Suns will probably stand as the most exhilarating win of the season, barring a miracle sprint toward the play-In. But Friday’s performance against the Chicago Bulls will go down, unquestionably, as the season’s most fun victory. With shots like these dropping, it’s no surprise Brooklyn set a season-best mark in smiles-per-minute. Not to spoil Milestone Watch, but Brooklyn’s 18 second-half threes tied four other squads for the most threes ever hit in a half. It seems like a fool-proof strategy.
“It was like everybody got hot at the same time. So it’s just good to get our guys in the flow like that. It’s just beautiful to see and, you know, they was just…” said Ollie as he trailed off, unable to find words that fit what he had seen.
“I mean, that’s what flow is. It’s just like an out of body experience.”
Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 125, Chicago Bulls 108
Milestone Watch
How could there not be milestones after a win like that?
- Again, Brooklyn’s 18 second-half threes tie an NBA-record for most makes in a half, and is a new franchise record.
- Remarkably, 25 3-pointers are not even a new season-high for the Nets. They also made 25 threes, also against the Chicago Bulls, on 11/25/23; these performances trail the 27 long-balls Brooklyn made on 2/15/2021 for the franchise’s single-game record.
- Schröder, Bridges, and Thomas are the second trio to ever hit at 5+ threes in the same game. The other time it happened was against Charlotte on April Fool’s Day, 2021, take a minute to guess who the snipers were. Ready? Jeff Green, Tyler Johnson, and Landry Shamet.
- This was Bridges’ fifth game of the season with at least six 3-pointers. That doubles his career total to ten.
- Nic Claxton recorded his 28th double-double of the season with 11/13/4, matching a career-high.
Ollie speaks on rotation players
Prior to the game, Kevin Ollie answered questions on a couple of Brooklyn’s deep-bench players trending in opposite directions.
Lonnie Walker entered Friday’s game among Brooklyn’s first round of substitutions, but would not see second-half minutes, usurped by Jalen Wilson in the rotation. Whether that was part of Ollie’s plan or a reaction to Walker’s six minutes in the first half, it continued a trend for the backup guard, who hasn’t seen 20 minutes since March 7.
“You know, it’s part of the rotation,” said Ollie, who continued with some specifics. “I keep telling him it’s not all just about scoring. It’s about doing all the other little things, you know: playing defense, rebounding, making the right plays, and that’s just how it is. So, you know, have him continue to understand that, and when your shot’s not falling, doing the other things to make an impact on the game.”
Walker, who will be a free agent this summer, isn’t hitting threes either, just 2-of-his-last-19 from deep. It’s a drastic turnaround from the start to the year, where he emerged as Brooklyn’s most important reserve and thrust himself into the early 6MOY conversation.
On the flip-side, there’s Trendon Watford, who reached double-figures for the third straight game on Friday. He played 24 minutes on Friday, but before that, Ollie pointed out two key improvements in Watford’s game as of late.
“He’s very cerebral when it comes to the game and his basketball IQ. But you know, the first thing is taking care of the ball, making sure we cut down on his turnovers, but he’ll still get into the lane, break the paint. One thing that we’ve been seeing lately: his confidence from the 3-point line. Teams are kind of sagging off of him because they know he likes to fake the DHO and get to the rim, so him being able to knock down those consistent threes will allow him to get downhill a little bit more.”
Overall, Ollie was effusive for the 23-year-old playing his first season in Brooklyn: “So, just his constant pressure that he puts offensively has been great, and he’s coming back getting loose balls and rebounding the basketball, him pushing him and it just gives us another ball-handler out there.”
Next Up
The Nets will look to win their fourth straight game on Sunday night, the first night of a back-to-back. They’ll take on the Los Angeles Lakers from the Barclays Center, with tip-off scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET.
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