BOSTON — Offensive rebounds, turnovers, poor transition defense, and touches for Seth Curry, all underscored by a particularly poor shooting night for Kevin Durant.
The film from the Nets’ one-point, buzzer-beating defeat in Game 1 shows a team that fought hard for about 44 minutes. But a three-minute stretch at the top of the third quarter and the final minute of regulation unraveled a valiant effort and spoiled a game the Nets almost stole at TD Garden.
Now it’s back to the drawing board. It’s back to the film room for a team with adjustments to make for Game 2.
THE NETS NEED TO CREATE MORE ‘EXOTIC’ TOUCHES FOR SETH CURRY
Curry scored or assisted on all six of the Nets’ opening points in Game 1. He scored once on a pull-up mid-range jump shot, again on a mid-range pull-up using an Andre Drummond screen, and found Drummond with a beautiful dump-off after drawing two defenders on a drive to the rim.
Curry scored seven points on 3-of-3 shooting from the field in his first eight minutes. Yet while Durant and Kyrie Irving each played more than 40 minutes, and Bruce Brown tallied 37, Curry only played 30. After the first eight minutes, he only attempted four more field goals, did not make any of them and finished with just nine points.
That’s in part because of Jaylen Brown’s hawking defense, but also because the remainder of Curry’s field goal attempts came on possessions that required him to generate his own offense in isolation.
In truth, the Nets should use Curry how they use Joe Harris: run their marksman off of a flurry of off-ball screens and let the chips fall where they may, be it a shot for Curry or Curry creating a look for a teammate.
Good things happen when Curry touches the ball. The Nets need to run more off-ball action to get him the rock.
CONSIDER MATCHING SIZE WITH SIZE
The Celtics start a pair of bigs in Al Horford and Daniel Theis, the same big men Bruce Brown said the Nets should attack with Boston’s starting center Robert Williams out with a knee injury.
The predictable ensued: Nic Claxton’s newfound “grown-man strength” was no match for Horford, 35, or Theis, 30, and Steve Nash only played Andre Drummond 17 minutes. Horford grabbed six offensive rebounds, Theis grabbed four, Marcus Smart grabbed two, while the Nets as a team only secured five.
The Celtics out-rebounded the Nets, 43-29, and generated 18 second-chance points to Brooklyn’s 11.
If only the Nets had another forward, just slightly bigger, to play some of the Brown minutes. Unfortunately, that player was the playoff-tested James Johnson, who the Nets waived to make room for Kessler Edwards in the playoff rotation.
Johnson is now a figment of the Nets’ imagination, and if they are going to match Boston’s size, inserting Blake Griffin makes the most sense.
Nash has been hesitant to play Griffin because he believes Griffin can only play center in today’s NBA. But the six-time All-Star played the four alongside Drummond during their shared time on the Detroit Pistons, and has played the four alongside Claxton multiple times this season and last.
TRANSITION DEFENSE
The Nets have been a poor transition defense team all season, and that has spilled into the playoffs, at least for Game 1.
And unfortunately for the Nets, transition starts when the Celtics inbound the ball because under Ime Udoka, they push the ball fast and take advantage of unsettled defenses.
The Nets, however, have a scouting department that knows this. They should know the Celtics are going to move the ball up the court quickly. On paper, the Celtics only beat the Nets in fastbreak points, 21-17, but those numbers don’t do the paltry Nets’ defense justice.
KEVIN DURANT HAS TO BE BETTER
The numbers speak for themselves. The Nets turned the ball over seven times in the first quarter alone and 16 times all night. Durant, flustered by Boston’s trapping defense, gave the ball away more times (6) than any other player in Game 1.
“They did a good job of forcing me away and then helping in the paint,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve just gotta be more fundamental in my moves.”
That can’t happen, not against a team as dynamic defensively as Boston, and certainly not for Durant, who is only weeks removed from decreeing himself an underrated passer after setting a new career high with 16 assists in a game.
Durant finished with just three assists to six turnovers and shot 9-of-24 from the field for 23 points.
And yet this was merely a one-point game, a win Nets fumbled in the final 40 seconds of regulation.
Durant missed a ton of makeable shots, but the film shows the Nets can do more to generate efficient, exotic looks for him. Instead he often settled for isolation pull-up jumpers. These are looks he should have made, but Nash and the coaching staff should look to make them easier.
“I feel like teams are going to be designed to take away some of my catches and my opportunities,” Durant said after Game 1. “I’ve been dealing with it for a while, so it’s on me to keep playing through it.”
Durant, much like Irving, however, is a tough-shot maker, and he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of his long history of raising his game in the playoffs. That’s what the Nets will need — for Durant to raise his game — if they’re going to escape this first-round series against a Boston team ready to legitimize themselves by knocking out a thus far illegitimate title contender.
“Nothing to overthink with Kevin Durant,” said Irving. “We know who he is.”
