The Atlanta Hawks have a potent offense, but the Brooklyn Nets let them get away with too much on Friday. It got to the point where the Nets surrendered 141 points. Prior to Friday, no Nets team had given up that many points since 1988.
With no Kyrie Irving — or Kevin Durant, for that matter — Brooklyn’s offense is limited. Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert can fill it up, as can Joe Harris and Taurean Prince on some nights, but there just isn’t enough to make up for a poor defensive night.
“Get back to [our] commitment to defense,” Spencer Dinwiddie told reporters in Atlanta. “One of our hallmarks, even during our bad season, was, like, our scrappiness, our toughness. Playing hard all the time, even when we weren’t winning games. You wanna have that type of mentality. You wanna defend at a high level, and that gives yourself a chance to win every game.
“When we were winning this season, we were holding team 100 or less, in that kinda range, ’cause we know we can beat the scoring mark. If we don’t do that and we give up 141, we’re not potent enough [of] an offense to play that style of basketball.”
"We made the game easy on them tonight.' -Spencer Dinwiddie#NETSonYES pic.twitter.com/zn2uCsAG1P
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) February 29, 2020
Even in their two losses prior to Friday’s, the Nets only gave up 115 points to the Orlando Magic and 110 to the Washington Wizards. Which may be why Kenny Atkinson wasn’t isn’t looking to make drastic changes, despite Brooklyn’s lack of defense against the Hawks.
“We’re seventh in the league in defensive and tonight we looked like we’re 800th in the league in defense,” Brooklyn’s head coach said. “We lost our defensive identity tonight. It’s not one game, I’m not going to start changing things or go crazy.”
The Nets need to get their defense back on track quickly. They are right back to work on Saturday, and their defense will face another tough test in Miami.