Will the Brooklyn Nets offensive play calling get more creative next season?
The Nets can afford to be bland on offense, but adding some needed creativity to their offense next season may make a difference in their attempt to win a championship.
In the 2020-2021 season, the Brooklyn Nets were a fun offensive team. They oscillated between fluid, team basketball and heliocentric hoops with their all-time offensive trio (when they were healthy). They created a new utility for non-floor spacing guards by using Bruce Brown as a screen and short roller that the league copied (Terrance Mann with the Clippers and Gary Peyton II with the Warriors). But in 2021-2022, the play calling got extremely bland and was incredibly boring to watch as a fan. You could go into every game knowing what to expect, whether it be them running Chicago action, Iverson action once Seth Curry joined the team, spread pick and roll with Kyrie Irving or Kevin Durant, pin downs underneath the rim for Durant to receive the ball and operate at the elbows or the nail, and more. There was no pre-play fluff to disguise the real action they wanted to get into to move the defense, or any off-ball action if the play was a success to occupy defenders either.
To be fair to the Nets, they could afford to be bland on offense. Your favorite team doesn’t have to top the league in passes per game to have an elite offense, especially when you have a generational offensive talent like Durant. According to PBPstats, when Durant was on the court the Nets had an OffRtg of 117.8. When Durant was off the court, the OffRtg dropped to 110.97 (it should be noted that Durant did get hurt and his time out coincided with Irving’s absence and Harden quitting / demanding a trade). When you have a 7-foot sniper who can make a jumper from anywhere on the court, you can run pin downs constantly and feel okay with it, regardless of the lack of visual pleasure. However, we saw the shortcomings of this in the playoff series against Boston, where the Celtics knew the spots that Durant wanted to get to and played physical against him, knowing he struggled to create separation and generate rim pressure since his injury. In the 2021-2022 season, the % of points that came from 0-3 feet for Durant was .109. Some names who fall in that same range: Khris Middleton (.104), Terrence Ross (.108), and Devin Booker (.110). It also didn’t help that the Nets roster had offensive shortcomings, the most important being a wing rotation that couldn’t space the court adequately without compromising by going small. They didn’t run any off ball action to occupy defenses while Durant was operating from his favorite spots either.
In the offseason, the Nets traded for Royce O’Neale, signed TJ Warren, and Joe Harris will be returning from his ankle injury, solidifying the wing rotation that will provide more floor spacing for the team. However, in the starting rotation, the lack of floor spacing will remain with Ben Simmons and Nic Claxton both in the starting lineup. It begs the question; how will the Nets avoid the same pothole they ran over last season?
In an ideal world, I’d like to see the Nets play like a mix of the Golden State Warriors in the half court and the 2019-2020 Lakers in transition. People remark that you can’t play with two non-shooting front court players in 2022, but the Warriors just won the title playing Draymond Green and Kevon Looney. The Warriors obviously have two once-in-a-lifetime shooters in Steph Curry and Klay Thompson that command an enormous amount of attention, the Draymond Green and Curry two-man game is one of the best combinations in the league, Green is one of the best short roller playmakers in the league, and Kevon Looney is an elite rebounder that creates more offensive opportunities or score for himself when he cleans the glass. It may not be a one-to-one replication, but the Nets can take some of the ideas that the warriors run and apply it to them.
One thing the Nets could do is utilize more exit (a/k/a pin-in) screens. Exit screens are screens a player sets on the side of the court while looking at the rim to open a corner three for shooters. An example of this is below:
As Curry is relocating to the left corner, you see Andrew Wiggins set the screen to free up Curry for an open three that he misses. It’s easy to imagine this with Ben as the ball handler at the top and Harris, Irving, Patty Mills, or Seth Curry in the Steph Curry role. Another example from basketball dictionary, which depicts the Atlanta Hawks utilizing an exit screen with two non-shooters (Clint Capela and Solomon Hill).
Capela goes to set the ball screen for Trae Young, who rejects it. As Young rejects the screen, #0 for the Hawks uses an exit screen from Hill for a made three. In the context of the Nets, Irving could be the ball handler, Claxton the screener that Irving rejects, #0 would be Harris, and Simmons would be setting the exit screen for Harris.
A play that the Nets can take from the Warriors is the infamous post-split action that they run.
With the post-split action, the Warriors throw the ball to Looney in the post. The player who passes the ball sets a screen for Thompson to free him up for an open three point that he makes. While Looney has the ball, Green is in the weakside corner, rendering his defender useless in stopping the action going on in the strong side. If two go to the ball to stop Thompson from getting a clean look, Wiggins could cut into open space and get a free layup or dunk instead. Or Wiggins could slip the screen entirely, fooling the defense and getting a clean paint touch. For the Nets, they could have Simmons operating out of the post, Claxton in the weakside corner, and Harris through the entry pass while Durant or Irving come off the Harris screen. Or Durant or Irving could screen for each other depending on how the action is initiated with Harris in the weak side slot instead.
Another play that the Warriors used is called motion weak. Motion weak starts with the primary ball handler bringing up the ball and passing it to a player in the strong side slot. After the pass is made, the player relocates to the weak side slot. As the player is cutting, a cross screen is occurring to establish post up positioning. Once the cutting player receives the ball, he can pass it to the player who just received a cross screen to give them a post up opportunity. The Warriors used it to get Durant post up opportunities, as explained in this video:
One last idea that the Nets could take from the Warriors involves a double pindown:
In the gif, we see Shaun Livingston handling the ball and on the weak side, Green and Steph look like they are going to set two pin down screens for Durant to use. However, Durant ends up curling after using the Curry screen and screens for Curry, opening up a three. With the plethora of shooters on the roster, one way for the Nets to create advantage is to use them as screeners. Envision Simmons in the Livingston role and Claxton as the second screener in the pindown sequence. Then, create any combination between Irving, Harris, and Durant. One of them could be the shooter in the corner, one could be the first pin down screener, and the last could be the player who accepts the first pin screen, curls, and sets the screen to open up a shooter. Those three are all elite shooters to justify running the action for.
I also mentioned wanting the Nets to play like the 2019-2020 Lakers who won the title. Mike Prada wrote a really good article on the topic that I recommend reading that I’m going to summarize: In the 2018-2019 Lakers season, they were one of the fastest teams in the league and played in transition often. However, their transition offense was not efficient as you would think. The following year with Anthony Davis in the mix, they played less in transition, but they were more effective in transition. So, what gives? They played smarter, not faster. The Lakers at times had Anthony Davis leak out after missed baskets and having LeBron James throw outlets to AD. They would also have AD on the opposite side of the court during free throw attempts and when the free throw was made, LeBron would throw a cross court pass to AD for an easy bucket. It works because LeBron is a generational passer and AD has an insane catch radius. Throwing passes to AD reminds me of a quote from The Wire, “Even if I miss, I can’t miss” (RIP MKW). It’s hard to fuck up a pass to AD.
While the Nets don’t have anyone with the insane catch radius of AD and no one to replicate LeBron’s passing, having Simmons and Durant might be close enough. In John Schumann’s analysis on Ben Simmons, he wrote, “He’s not the most efficient transition scorer. Simmons’ 1.00 points per possession in transition ranked just 108th among 134 players with at least 100 transition possessions two seasons ago. But Simmons is more apt to fuel his team’s transition game with the pass. He ranked second with 6.8 pass-ahead passes per game and third with 2.2 transition assists per 36 minutes in ’20-21, according to Second Spectrum tracking.” The Nets, without Simmons, still played at a fast space. Though not a perfect measure, the Nets played at the 11th fastest pace last season and they were tied for 6th in time to shoot after a defensive rebound according to Inpredictable. They also were in the 75th percentile in transition efficiency determined by PPP, though they were in the bottom half of the league in terms of transition frequency and in the playoffs (with a small sample), the Nets were the most efficient transition team, averaging 1.31 PPP. With the addition of Simmons, I’d imagine the Nets’ transition frequency will increase and their efficiency may jump slightly. With the Nets switching scheme, there will be opportunities for Durant to leak out after a miss to take advantage of an unsuspecting defense and have Simmons throw outlets to him, or they can copy what the Lakers did with AD after missed free throws.
Ultimately, I suspect the Nets won’t do what I would like them to do in an ideal world. It wouldn’t surprise me if they brought back the half court offense from last year with some added layers, which is good. The Nets hired Igor Kokoskov from the Dallas Mavericks to be their new offensive assistant head coach and he conveniently runs some of the concepts that the Nets utilized last season. I made a twitter thread about how the Nets used Iverson cuts and how Kokoskov’s utilization of Iverson cuts may add some necessary creativity to the offense. He even runs a Chicago action and turns it into Spain PNR (a/k/a stack PNR). Regardless of what the Nets do offensively this season, they’ll most likely end up being elite on that end (if they stay healthy) based on the talent alone, but adding some new layers to pre-existing concepts, and new concepts to navigate some roster wonkiness may help make a difference in chasing their goal of winning a title.