After a pitiful loss against the Detroit Pistons on February 9th, the Brooklyn Nets have been on a six game winning streak. Who did they beat? The Indiana Pacers, and the entire, very competitive, Pacific Division. They beat the Warriors by 17, the Kings by 11, the Suns by 4, the Lakers by 11, and finally the Clippers by 4, albeit with some iffy officiating in the final minutes. The biggest surprise in that stretch? The MVP candidate, and debatable best player on this team, Kevin Durant, only played one game in this stretch.
You may tell me, “but the Nets have two other All-Stars, of course they should be winning games,” and to that I agree. However, winning against the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seeds in the West is no small feat. On top of the fact that the Nets still aren’t playing ANY defense. In this six game stretch, in half of the games the losing team scored more than 110 points, and almost a fourth with the Clippers scoring 108. Even on top of that, the Nets don’t have a real Center. I’ve talked before about how lackluster Deandre Jordan has been playing, and I’m aware that he scored a clutch bucket against the Clippers, but Jordan hasn’t been a coveted target since 2015. He isn’t the same player that he used to be, and for reasons like that, we’ve seen Kevin Durant at Center this season.
The Nets have some hurdles ahead of them for sure. There have been some games where all three of KD, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden have played together, and it has been an awesome offensive performance. Other times, however, it seems like they have too much talent to know what to do with. For whatever reason, Steve Nash and the Nets coaching staff haven’t staggered the minutes between those three as much as needed, and at times their offense has suffered for it. In some of the games that I’ve seen live, the best offensive player on the floor at times has been Joe Harris. I like Joe, personally, but it isn’t like he’s going to be taking guys off the dribble anytime soon.
The biggest issue, in my mind, has been and always will be their defensive effort. I know that KD has the ability to lock in with his huge wingspan, and be a defensive force. Kyrie can play defense, but for much of his career he hasn’t wanted to. Harden, for as much as he has been ridiculed for not playing defense for the majority of his career, has shown the desire to want to play if it directly translates to winning games. I think the biggest thing is just the desire to want to play defense. Scoring is a lot of fun. For the casual fan, scoring 140+ points could be really exciting. When it comes to playoff games, though, and the game gets a little slower, and there are more half-court possessions instead of fast break opportunities, the Nets won’t have a chance to score that many points. At some point they are going to have to commit to playing defense for the betterment of the entire team.
I’ve liked that the Nets are starting to string together wins, and I think from an offensive standpoint, they are starting to figure it out. On defense, there is much to be desired if they want to truly compete for a championship.
Round The Game 
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