The “snowball effect” buried the Nets on Thursday in Toronto, as it routinely has all season. When adversity strikes, in whatever form it may take, the team still is not managing these momentum-shifting moments as well as it should.
“We have to make sure that we understand that we have to get stops if the ball isn’t going in,” interim head coach Kevin Ollie said. “We have to get back and corral, show bodies. [The Raptors] were just getting layups and we can’t allow that to happen.”
Brooklyn shot just 33-of-80 from the field and 11-of-30 from 3-point range, but one could argue that defense was a bigger issue in Thursday’s 121-93 loss. The Raptors were not as efficient when Brooklyn sprinted back, set its defense and forced them to play in the halfcourt. Imagine that. It did not happen nearly enough, and that was the biggest issue.
Toronto finished with 46 fast break points, a testament to the Nets’ uninspired transition defense. Brooklyn was kept on its heels for most of the night and allowed its offensive struggles to dictate its defensive intensity. When the team was making shots, as it did to start the third quarter, suddenly it began to force stops.
“I think it was just a snowball effect, us not making shots,” Ollie said. “We get it down to one and then them getting out on the break and we’re kind of hanging our head when we have to push back at them with pace and moving the basketball and moving our bodies.”
Defense should lead to offense, not the other way around. That should be understood at this point in the season. Brooklyn’s 21-34 record indicates that it still does not get the message.
“Some of them, we take a shot and we’re just sitting there watching the ball go up,” Cam Thomas said. “I have a tendency to do it sometimes, just sitting there and watching. But we have to get better at that and just sprint back and contain the ball and just make them make shots over us. If they make shots over us, we’ll live with that.”
The Nets rank 21st in the league in defensive efficiency (116.9) and 24th in fast break points allowed (15.6). The poor body language and dispirited attitudes during opposing runs have been an enemy for this team too often this season.
Nothing will change until Brooklyn demands change as a collective. Ollie understands that, but it cannot just be talk.
“It’s going to continue to beat us if we don’t change that and that’s something that we can change,” Ollie said. “We can talk about the loose balls, we can talk about that all we want to, but if we don’t bring it out on the court on a consistent basis it’s not going to work. Because we had spurts [against Toronto] … we had the game close. But if they hit us, we have to make sure we hit them back and I don’t think we did that… We have to be the ones to make them match our intensity.”
