Glass ceiling
Nets will have to improve rebounding for breakthrough
The word is out on the Nets. And the word is rebound.
Brooklyn’s Achilles’ heel has never been much of a secret, but either the Nets have done a worse job protecting it or opponents have done a better job attacking it. Or both.
The end result is the same: Being mauled on the defensive glass, earning a reputation as weak rebounders and getting handed three straight losses.
“Yeah, we have to accept it. It’s truth. It’s staring us in the face,” coach Jacque Vaughn said. “The scouting report says to try to go offensive rebound versus the Nets, and we have to understand that and really do a diligent job of continuing to try and do it together. We can’t do it with two people, with three people. We show clips where literally we need all five people to come back and get a piece of somebody.”
It hasn’t happened nearly enough. Hosting Cleveland on Tuesday and Thursday, they’ll be tested against one of the league’s bigger teams. It’s going to leave Vaughn with some tough choices.
“For sure [it’s a concern]. A lot of teams send two or three guys to the glass,” Royce O’Neale said. “Just learning from those games. We’re easily capable of doing it. We have the guys to do; we just have to go after it.”
With his smallish, athletic roster, Vaughn could play like Jason Kidd’s old Nets — punishing teams that went to the offensive glass with leak outs and the threat of transition dunks. But that hasn’t deterred foes lately, so Vaughn kept players in to hit the defensive boards Sunday and sacrificed the fast break. It still didn’t save them, outrebounded 40-33 in a loss to the Nuggets.
“We had zero fast-break points in the first half,” Vaughn said. “So we did try to sacrifice that and bring guys back and try to hit, and if we couldn’t get out on the break then that sort of is part of it.
“So we’re trying to be systematic in how we approach this problem. But I just want our guys to embrace it, and realize that it is really the big difference from us being a pretty good defensive team. And that’s a challenge we have to take on and we’ve got to win it. We’ve got to win that challenge.”
So far, they’ve failed miserably. Brooklyn is last in the NBA in rebound percentage (47.0), and since trading Kevin Durant that’s dropped even further to 45.6 percent.
“Continue to harp on it,” Cam Johnson said. “Continue to crash the glass and just figure out our rotations and where we’re gonna be so we know where those rebounds are coming to.”
O’Neale, Mikal Bridges, Dorian Finney-Smith and Nic Claxton are strong defenders, but the Nets have a rebounding problem they can’t solve unless they crash collectively.
“We’re capable of doing it. We did it before. Just everybody paying a little more attention to detail to it, helping Nic out especially when we go small and me or [Finney-Smith] are at the 5,” O’Neale said. “We’ve all got to gang rebound.”
“Personally I’ve got to be better; but as a team as well,” added Bridges. “We’ve just gotta gang rebound and help each other.
“It’s just effort and the mentality to go get the rebound. You’re going in there and sticking your nose in there so just the mentality to go in there.”
Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen (eye) practiced Monday and will make the trip, but is listed as questionable. Throw in Evan Mobley, Lamar Stephens and Robin Lopez, and the test will be difficult.
“We still want everybody to come back, hit, help each other. This is going to be a community of rebounding,” Vaughn said. “The parallel, the silos, can’t happen. We’ve all got to interact and intersect and come back and rebound. You can’t just be a shooter and don’t rebound. You can’t just be a driver and don’t rebound. You can’t just be a big and don’t rebound.
“Everybody’s got to come and rebound.”