Nets make wise investment in ‘D’

While Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton shouldered the offensive load for the 2021 NBA champion Bucks, PJ Tucker and Jrue Holiday were the team’s defensive stoppers. While LeBron James and Anthony Davis did the same for the championship Lakers, Markieff Morris, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Rajon Rondo got some stops.

Every championship team led by elite offensive talents is almost always backed up by role players providing ferocious defense. It was true of the Stephen Curry’s Warriors, who relied on Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, and after an active offseason, it’ll be true of the Nets if they realize their championship dreams this season.

That’s where the Nets hope Deandre Bembry comes in.

Bembry played a handful of minutes for the Raptors in a 13-point loss to the Nets, a game in which Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving combined for just 26 points, while six other Nets scored in double digits.

“You have so many different options that sometimes you just can’t draw up stuff for this type of team,” Bembry said on Monday. “You’ve just got to go out there and let them play.”

The Nets’ offseason may be headlined by Durant’s decision to sign a four-year max contract extension, but a little further down the billing, Bembry, Bruce Brown and Jevon Carter have their own parts to play. The addition of these three defenders (and in Brown’s case, his re-signing) gives the Nets the offense-defense balance that was missing on last season’s team.

And it makes them even more of a threat to win it all this season.

Offense, after all, hasn’t been an issue since Durant stepped onto the court with a healthy Achilles. It hasn’t been an issue since Kyrie Irving laced it up with the Nets, or since James Harden forced his way onto the team. And offense doesn’t project to be an issue in case of injury this time around, either: New Nets point guard Patty Mills is also a spark plug, as he proved leading Australia to a bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics.

But as the defense went last season, so did the Nets. Their rock bottoms came in two awful defensive performances: a loss to the Pistons, who at the time owned the league’s worst offense; and a 21-point second-quarter deficit in Denver, when the Nets knew they just weren’t playing hard enough to get stops.

Enter Bemby and Carter, new looks on the defensive end.

Carter said he and Nets coaches have already discussed his role as a defensive stopper first and foremost. He did not see much time on the floor in Phoenix given the minutes absorbed by Chris Paul, Devin Booker and Cameron Payne, but Carter said he was a vocal leader off the floor.

“You’re gonna have games where you’re scoring and not scoring, but every night you shouldn’t have a game where you’re just bad defensively,” he said in his introductory press conference on Monday. “That should just never happen. I just feel like that’s a must, and that’s just who I am.”

Meanwhile, Bembry comes in with his own experiences playing alongside stars who run the offense. Last season, he played with the Raptors alongside Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam and Fred Vanvleet. He spent the prior season in Atlanta with Trae Young and John Collins and spent his first two NBA seasons playing off of Dennis Schroder.

None of his former teammates are the caliber of a Durant, a Harden or an Irving — in Young’s case, not yet — but being part of offenses that revolve around singular talents gave Bembry a taste of what’s to come with the Nets.

“Some of the guys, especially at the point guard position, a lot of guys like to score now,” Bembry said. “Being with Trae, you know he’s a score-first mentality point guard. … Guys that are ball-dominant, you’ve got to be able to play off the ball. I’ve played with a few different guys where I know how to play around the system and try to find my points where I can get out there and make something happen.”

Brown has already found his niche: Yes, he can defend multiple positions, but that floater went up and in often, and if it wasn’t there, he became a secondary playmaker after receiving the pass on a screen and roll. He crashed the boards and created opportunities for himself and his teammates, creating a blueprint for Bembry to come in and help the team.

Brown already knows what kind of defender the Nets are getting in Carter, dating all the way back to the pre-draft process the two shared in 2018.

“He was picking me up 94 feet (the full length of the basketball court) in the draft workouts, which was nuts,” Brown reminisced. “But a great defender. Good dude off the court. I know him pretty well.”

In layman’s terms, the Nets just added their own version of lockdown Clippers’ guard Patrick Beverley, kept Brown, and also added Bembry, a versatile defender who’s averaged a steal per game over his five seasons in the league.

“I don’t think there’s gonna be any easy buckets (against us),” Brown said. “I’ll tell you that.”

Nets coach Steve Nash said it often last season: His team didn’t have the roster composition to be elite on defense. Instead, the Nets strived for average, or just competent enough, knowing their offense could carry the rest of the weight. hat burden has been lifted some. With the right lineup on the floor, the Nets can be excellent defensively by subbing any combination of their three defensive playmakers onto the floor with their three superstar scorers. The Nets finally invested in defense, and the move projects to pay dividends down the road.

Then again, the only dividend the Nets care about is that NBA championship trophy. Rumor has it, defense helps win those, too.

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