We have a signal from New York. The city that is good at everything but basketball suddenly features the two hottest teams in the NBA right now. The Knicks won eight games in a row until a rare performance by Pascal Siakam stopped them, this streak lifted Tom Thibodeau’s team into the top six in the Eastern Conference. Brooklyn does not stop and registers 11 victories in the last 12 games, even against a very favorable game schedule, this is a streak that cannot be ignored. The Nets have stuck a peg in fourth place in the East and are starting to squint at the big three as well. If the Knicks prove consistency we will have to start taking them seriously as well, but today is the time to understand if Brooklyn is actually a great team this year.
On paper, Brooklyn’s success should be less surprising than the Knicks’. After all, this is a team of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, two of the top scorers in the league, which only two years ago was still a serious candidate for the championship. But since then it has been a traveling circus that has only gotten stronger. Last season included Kyrie’s vaccine refusals that caused him to miss most of the season and James Harden’s trade request that went in exchange for Ben Simmons who didn’t play. In the summer, Durant also demanded a trade, and then wanted the home owners to fire coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks, none of that happened and he just started the season with the team.
What else could happen? Good that you asked. The season opened with Simmons returning to play, looking very rusty and soon taking another break. In early November, after a negative 5:2 start, Nash was fired. Rumors that appeared to be well-founded insisted that the Nets had reached an agreement with Ayame Yudoka, the coach who was suspended from Boston following an undisclosed affair with an employee. In the end, Yudoka did not make it to the Big Apple, and the one who remains as head coach is assistant coach Jacques Von. Almost at the same time as Nash’s dismissal came the incident of the anti-Semitic film that Kyrie shared, which led to his suspension from several games and a list of demands for an apology that I believe included Yiddish studies.
This whole mess ended a little over a month ago. So, the possibility that in a few days the circus would calm down and Brooklyn would become a good and connected basketball team seemed completely far-fetched. But that’s exactly what happened. To understand how you have to start from the vertices, but absolutely not stop at them.
The stars star
In the past month, Durant and Irving have played all but one game in which they were rested together and one the night Kyrie was rested due to a minor injury. Both looked at their peak this month, and it shows in the numbers. As of Wednesday (like all the data in the article) in the last 14 games, KD scored 30.1 points on 60.7 percent from the field and 94.7 percent from the free throws, and Kyrie added 25.7 points on 51.3 percent from the field and 90.9 percent from the free throws during this period. Each of them takes over a few minutes in each game and together they are the least stopped duo in the league. Exactly what they were supposed to be for three years but it almost didn’t happen.
It’s not obvious, not that they play consistently and not that they play that well. Durant is already 34 years old, and since tearing his Achilles tendon in the 2019 Finals has played a combined 90 regular season games in the three seasons before this one. In the last playoffs, he looked human, for the first time in many years, and struggled against Boston’s aggressive defense. He came into this season with question marks around his health, around the possibility of the beginning of a decline and around his motivation to play at the club he had already decided to leave.
None of that matters for now. He’s healthy, he looks purposeful, and he’s delivering career-best shooting numbers: the most points per game since 2014 with career-high percentages from the field and free throws. The weighted shooting percentage, 67.4, is the highest of his career and one of the highest ever for a leading scorer. He’s back to being sharp on defense (even if not as consistently as before) and is a legitimate MVP candidate for now.
Kyrie Irving is one of the most mysterious athletes in the world. Year after year he finds ways to get into trouble, cause problems, disturb his team, miss games, it is no longer at all certain that it is possible to build a successful team of which he is a central part. But when he’s already playing, he almost never stops being one of the most efficient scorers in the NBA. He continues to find ways to finish in the paint with virtuosity, continues to get free for threes without a problem, continues to score big baskets in the clutch. He feels best as a number 2 next to a senior winger, when he can take over the business at the right moments and days for him and take a step back on others. Also for him this is one of the best seasons of his career so far.
Everything is still fragile, of course. At any moment, Kyrie can find an original way to destroy everything, and KD has not finished a whole season without a significant absence for a long time. But it looks like as long as they both play, Brooklyn will be in good shape. Two scorers like that are a safe bet for points against any defense in the league, and they make life for the players around them much easier. The demands on the supporting players around them should not be high, and even players with limited talent can become important rotation players next to them. That’s exactly what happened to several players on Vonn’s roster, and it’s the second biggest story in Brooklyn right now behind the two stars.
the surrounding band of warriors
The third scorer on Brooklyn’s staff scores 11.6 points per game, the fourth no longer scores in double figures. But the pitching staff is full of defensive warriors, players who come to work every night and have enough talent to not become holes in the offense. These are exactly the type of players that the Nets didn’t have enough of last year, and this year they get the most significant chunk of the rotation minutes around KD and Kyrie.
Ben Simmons, in his current version, belongs to this group. He is the top guard on Won’s staff (even if he started the season with a bang in this area as well), and his ability to guard every outfield player in the league allows the coach a very high flexibility in the lineups. Offensively, his role is very diverse: he runs transition attacks, carries the ball while the scorers come out of blocks, starts moves in the post (that’s where most of his shots come from), serves as a blocker in the pick-n-roll that rolls in and can get the ball out to the scorers.
Those who are reminded of Draymond Green by this description are not wrong. Simmons’ career seems to be going in that Dray-matching direction, including the low lineups where he’s used as a kind of center. He is not able to guard interior players like Green and does not provide the same level of defensive presence in help and leadership, but this is probably the most logical way for him to become a significant player in the league. Perhaps with time and confidence he will return to show sparks of a more quality scorer in penetration, but for the current Brooklyn he is suitable as a player of 10.4 points and 5.9 assists per game – his numbers since he started getting involved more than a month ago.
Center Nick Claxton is that third scorer at 11.6 points per game, and he’s shooting 74 percent from the field. Claxton looks like a legitimate starting center in the league for the first time this year. His offensive game is more polished and includes the ability to make different moves in the paint – dribble-two when needed, fouls, the occasional pass. Defensively, he has always been one of the best centers in the league in exchange for guards, this year his presence in the paint is also one of the best in the NBA. He provides 2.4 blocks per game, improved defensive rebounding (but not enough) and changes quite a few shots.
Royce O’Neal, who arrived from Utah in the summer, completes the five and gets consistent minutes. He turned out to be a perfect fit for the Nets’ needs. While in Utah he is required to be the top guard on outfielders, in Brooklyn he is just another good guard and it is a role better suited to him. In the attack, he brings to light his outside shooting and passing ability that allows him to continue moving the attack when the ball reaches him and occasionally even make moves himself. With 2.2 3-pointers per game at over 40 percent, 4.5 assists, good defense and a lot of energy, O’Neal is the ultimate complementary player for the Nets.
The group of fighters is closed by the one who deserves the title of Brooklyn’s discovery of the season: the Japanese forward Yuta Watanabe. This is a player who in the last two years received sporadic opportunities in Toronto and did not stand out in the never-ending group of forwards of Nick Nurse. In the summer he received a non-guaranteed contract in Brooklyn and pounced on the opportunity until he became a rotation player ahead of much bigger names. Utah is another player with high energy and a good, pressing defense, but the big surprise is the outside shooting. He mainly shoots 3-pointers from the corner and hits them at no less than 69 percent. Many of these threes come at crucial moments, he is the player with the highest percentage of threes in the league in the last quarter. Those percentages will level off, but Brooklyn may have gotten a true rotation player who fits their needs exactly and isn’t afraid of big moments.
Along with the Warriors, Won’s bench also includes quite a bit of shooting talent. Joe Harris was injured most of last season and is starting to get back into things, he is tall enough and guards well enough not to be a hole on the other side which is a big plus for any three point specialist. Seth Curry and Patty Mills are the veteran guards who can explode on a given day, but are harder to contain on defense. TJ Warren recently returned to play after a very long time and serves as a potential added value on the bench. Warren broke out as a top scorer on the bubble, but always knew how to function as an effective secondary scorer as well. The combination of the Warriors and the Shooters creates a supporting cast deep and diverse enough to build a good rotation around KD and Kyrie.
The compositions and the method
One of the big questions heading into the season was whether the shooting-less Simmons and Claxton could play together. The answer, meanwhile, is that it’s not ideal but not terrible either. Brooklyn’s top five have a negative net rating, but only slightly. In any case, Vaughn divides the minutes so that most of the time only one of them is on the floor, which means a lot of minutes of low vehicles, most of which look better. He has yet to form a consistent rotation but instead tries different types of lineups and uses multiple players each game, but his main money-time lineup seems to include Kyrie, Durant, Simmons and two of O’Neal, Watanabe, and Harris. This is a team that is very difficult to stop and includes many good defenders.
Brooklyn’s offense ranks eighth in the league and is based on a very high shooting ability from all ranges. She is among the top five in the league in percentages under the basket, in the far area of the paint, from half distance and in threes from the corner. The combination of two such efficient scorers and an assist team that includes a center that finishes great in the paint, some good morale and some three-pointers makes Brooklyn a team that gets good shots and hits them at excellent percentages. The attack is mainly based on the ability of the two stars to create shooting situations or to sow panic in the defense, the movement of the ball after the first pass is good and maintains the initial advantage until a good shot arrives.
Defensively, Vonn relies almost entirely on automatic turnovers, with plenty of help in the paint. Brooklyn leads the league in blocks per game (7) and lowers the percentage of opponents under the basket, but it comes at the expense of longer ranges. Against automatic turnovers, opponents are forced to use multiple isolations, and they quickly learn to attack Kyrie Irving. It would seem that it would help the Nets to also learn to avoid trades from time to time in order to keep the top defensemen on the opposing stars. But overall the defense is good until the first shot, the defensive rebound drops it from the top 10 to the middle of the table in defensive efficiency.
Bottom line, a group seems to have formed in Brooklyn. Around the two stars there is currently a coach and supporting staff who are not looking for drama, who are comfortable in the secondary roles they are given, with enough talent to build a rotation with a lot of defense and energy and without a distinct weak link in the attack, including Ben Simmons who is settling into the role that is right for him at this stage of his career. What’s especially important is that Durant and Kyrie seem to enjoy playing on this team, especially KD who doesn’t seem off like he did in the last playoffs. If Durant’s legs and Kyrie’s head (and actually the legs too) don’t fall apart, which is still a very big if, Brooklyn could be the dark horse of the East, the team no one wants to meet in the playoffs.