The Brooklyn Nets are right on schedule
Admit it. After having been down by 14 points entering the fourth quarter Tuesday night, and once Kevin Love hit two free throws to give the Cavaliers a three-point lead with under three minutes remaining, you thought the Nets were finished.
Even when Spencer Dinwiddie knocked down a 3-pointer to tie it moments later, the Kyle Korver response to return the Cavaliers to the lead was definitely, obviously the nail in the coffin for the Nets, playing against the toast of the Eastern Conference without either D’Angelo Russell or Jeremy Lin to run the point. This is a team that trotted out Timo Mozgov to start and played him for an extremely pedestrian 12 minutes.
But then, Dinwiddie, Rondae-Hollis Jefferson and DeMarre Carroll each contributed crucial offensive possessions in a variety of ways — Dinwiddie from distance, Hollis-Jefferson at the rim and Carroll from the free throw line — and the Nets sealed a fiercely improbable victory over Cleveland at home, bringing their record to 3-2.
Dinwiddie, in particular, was excellent on the offensive end, going 4-of-8 from 3 and finishing with 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting with 6 assists and 5 rebounds in his first start of the season, after being a sporadic contributor off the bench through the first four games. He has already doubled his number of attempts from outside over last year in roughly the same number of minutes, though he hit several season-highs against Cleveland.
Though that 3-2 record certainly masks some hidden volatility — the Nets have both beaten the Magic by five and lost to the same Magic by four, as well as losing a surprisingly compelling offensive battle in their opener against the Indiana Pacers — Brooklyn has already shown signs of being a disruptive squad in the East, spurred along by creative coaching from Kenny Atkinson, astute front office work from Sean Marks and the encouraging development of players like Hollis-Jefferson, Sean Kilpatrick and Caris LeVert. Today’s giant-killers are tomorrow’s giants.
Though it is — say it with me in your finest Sam Hinkie voice — a small sample size, through Tuesday, the Nets boasted the highest-scoring offense in the NBA in terms of points per game (though, it should be noted, they also allow the most points per game). Brooklyn has presented a template for being much better much sooner than anyone predicted, particularly this season.
After jettisoning longtime franchise talisman Brook Lopez to the Lakers in the offseason for Russell, Mozgov and the rights to Kyle Kuzma, the Nets have moved toward a more fluid offensive system, emphasizing shot creation at points of efficiency. To that end, Brooklyn is ninth in the league in percentage of field goal attempts coming from beyond the 3-point line, ahead of conference giants Cleveland and Boston.
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For a team that won a combined 41 games in the past two seasons, the Nets are already showing marked signs of improvement. And all this is just on the court. Who knows what changes an impending sale and new ownership will bring?
Their win over a hobbled-yet-still-dangerous Cavs team, with LeBron James running the point, went further than just a simple display of “any team can beat any other on any given night.” Brooklyn hasn’t fully arrived yet, but, like the sight of light and the sound of cars approaching the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center subway station, they are giving just a bit of hope to New York basketball fans, long-starved of the opportunity to watch a home team succeed.