Why The Brooklyn Nets Will Win It All AND Why They Won’t
This is part of an eight part series examining the NBA’s top title contenders. Competition is tough this year as the West has five real threats and the East has three. Out West the Jazz, Suns, Nuggets, Clippers, and Lakers. In the East the 76ers, Nets, and Bucks.
Why They Will Win
This team all season long has done the majority of its winning by outscoring the opponent. When you have Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving that’s not too hard to do even if they only played eight games together entering the playoffs. They have three of the top five scorers in the league and are surrounded by a strong supporting cast. Bruce Brown, Landry Shamet, and Blake Griffin give three very nice bench pieces. Joe Harris is their fourth scoring option putting up 14.1 ppg and shooting 47.5% from three. Trying to stop this offense isn’t happening unless the team heads into a series with a “fuck it we’re too good to lose” mentality.
Threes are a big reason why this offense is so good; they have the ninth highest three point attempt rate and converting threes at the 3rd highest rate as a team. They’re 1st in points per 100 possessions offensively at 119.2 with 112.8 being the league average. The Nets are also number one in team effective field goal percentage, which accounts for threes being an extra point, at 58% . Offensively they also turn the ball over at the tenth lowest rate and are 5th in free throw rate. Opponents that can’t make threes at a high level have almost no chance of competing with an offense this deadly and complete.
While their defense is bad there could be a silver lining as they are 8th in opponent effective field goal percentage. This is probably because they’re in the middle of the league in terms of opponent three point field percentage at 14th. This is a team that if fully healthy or just has two of their superstars they should have no problem outscoring any team they play through a seven game series. This is probably the easiest team to make a case for.
Why They Won’t Win
As previously mentioned this team doesn’t play very good defense outside of their opponent effective field goal percentage. They’re 22nd in opponent points per 100 possessions and 28th in defensive turnover percentage meaning they are almost the league worst at forcing their opponents into making mistakes. Defensive rebound percentage is also bad ranking 23rd and offensively they have a very low rebound rate as well ranking 22nd. They also once again only had seven games where their big three played together which could be very detrimental in a tough hard fought series which is something that could absolutely happen against the Bucks or 76ers. For this team it really is as simple as their health, lack of time spent between their best players, and a garbage defense are the biggest obstacles that need to be overcome.
All stats are from Cleaning the Glass and Basketball Reference
https://cleaningtheglass.com https://www.basketball-reference.com
