NEW YORK CITY has lifted the vaccine mandate for athletes and performers, which means starting Sunday against the Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving is eligible to play home games for the first time this season.
The change in Irving’s status arrives just in time for the Nets, who play six of their last eight games at home (with a road matchup against the New York Knicks mixed in). Had the mandate gone unchanged, Irving would have been eligible to play only one more game this regular season. Instead he can play all eight as Brooklyn looks to hold off Charlotte for eighth in the Eastern Conference and maintain a slightly easier play-in path to the playoffs.
It’s too soon to know if Irving will dramatically alter the Nets’ regular-season standing (Brooklyn enters Sunday in eighth, two games back of Cleveland and a game ahead of Charlotte), but his change in availability immediately gives the Nets the scariest offense in the league — and shines a light on an Achilles’ heel for Brooklyn that could potentially sink any championship aspirations.
ON THE OFFENSIVE end, Irving is a human highlight film. He owns arguably the best handles professional basketball has ever seen. But his uncanny dribbling ability is good for more than just style points. His ability to use his dribble to generate reliable jumpers, runners and layups is one of the prettiest — and most effective — sights in the sport right now.
Irving’s ballhandling ability results in a remarkable blend of high usage, elite efficiency and a low turnover rate that quickly makes it clear just how good he is with the ball in his hands. In each of the past two seasons in Brooklyn, Irving has posted better than a 60% true shooting mark, a usage rate of at least 30% and a turnover percentage of under 10%. How rare is that? In the past 40 years the only other players to have a season like that were Kawhi Leonard (in 2016-17 and 2018-19) and Michael Jordan (in 1987-88, 1989-90 and 1990-91).
In the four-game span starting with his 50-point performance in Charlotte on March 8 and ending with his 43-point night at Memphis on March 23, Irving scored 175 points and made 62% of his shots. Since 1990 only two other players have recorded 175 points and 60% shooting over a four-game span: Jordan and Stephen Curry.
While these kinds of statistical measures might seem random, they do a good job of capturing the basic fact that Irving is essentially offensive efficiency in a can — a can Nets coach Steve Nash suddenly has reliable access to just in time for the postseason.
Irving’s daily presence means Brooklyn enters the playoffs with two of the best scorers in the league in its starting five.
Like many of the best scorers, both Irving and Kevin Durant can generate unassisted buckets at elite levels, especially as jump-shooters. Along with Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan and Phoenix’s Devin Booker, Brooklyn’s superstar duo both rank in the top four in the NBA.
Those exact kinds of unassisted jumpers are especially valuable in the postseason. Anyone who watched the Finals from 2016 to 2018 knows how instrumental those shots were in both Irving and Durant collecting championship rings.
Irving’s legendary series-winning 3-pointer in 2016 was one of the greatest shots in NBA Finals history and six years later his ability to score in crunch time is still one of his signature skills. Irving has only played 18 fourth quarters this season but has averaged 9.1 points in them — the highest fourth-quarter scoring average in the NBA in 2021-22.
When Durant and Irving have shared the floor this season, Brooklyn has posted ridiculous scoring numbers, averaging more than 128 points per 100 possessions. That is 12 points better than Utah’s league-leading 116 per 100 and the second-highest mark among roughly 1,600 two-man lineups to play 200-plus minutes together this season, trailing only Irving and Bruce Brown.
One more encouraging note: Of the 13 Nets players who have logged at least 500 minutes this season, only Durant has a higher on-court net rating than Irving.
WHILE IT’S CLEAR that the Nets’ offensive talent is staggering, there remains one inconvenient truth: NBA championships require two-way greatness, and the biggest red flags with both Irving and this Nets squad have always been on the unglamorous end of the floor.
Brooklyn’s flaw is defense, and in the context of a suddenly loaded Eastern Conference, it might prove fatal. Entering Sunday, Brooklyn ranks 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating and, to be kind, it’s unclear how Irving’s return deodorizes the Nets’ stinkiest trait.
Yes, the offense is superb, but compared with healthy two-way contenders such as Boston, Miami, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, it’s fair to ask whether the Nets will be able to get enough stops to win multiple best-of-seven series against postseason squads that come equipped with excellence on both ends.
If anyone knows this painful truth, it’s Nash, who led some of the most dazzling, most influential offenses of the 2000s but whose greatest teams now offer cautionary evidence about the limitations of one-way excellence. It’s fair to ask if Nash, now in the role of head coach, is about to relearn those painful lessons for familiar reasons.
Irving’s defensive impact isn’t exactly inspiring. In his 730 minutes of action this season, the Nets have posted a woeful defensive rating of 115.5. That ranks 28th in the NBA. Last season, in his 1,886 minutes, the Nets’ defense allowed 113.8 points per 100, a figure that would have placed 25th in the league.
Drilling down a bit more, Irving’s ability to defend at the point of attack is a real concern. Over the past two seasons, the Nets have switched the fourth-most of any team when defending on-ball screens. Their defensive efficiency on these plays ranks just outside the top 10, allowing 0.97 points per direct play. However, when Irving is involved in the action as the defender on the ball handler, the Nets allow 1.06 points per direct play, which would rank last by any team in the NBA over the past two seasons.
Those defensive numbers don’t scare anyone except Nets fans, especially in the context of recent NBA history. Each of the league’s past 20 champions ranked 11th or better in defensive rating during the regular season. Nash’s phenomenal Phoenix teams of the 2000s never ranked better than 15th. This year’s Nets currently rank 22nd in that category.
The last team ranked that low in defensive efficiency to win it all was the 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers, who also ranked 22nd. However, that team was the defending champion and had Shaquille O’Neal at his absolute apex. It was also the ultimate flip-the-switch team of the 21st century NBA. After ranking 22nd in the league in defense in the regular season, that legendary Lakers team posted the best defensive efficiency in the postseason, holding opponents to 97.9 points per 100 possessions en route to a 15-1 playoff record and a second consecutive championship.
It’s virtually impossible to see how this Nets team could accomplish something similar. Its defense simply doesn’t have that extra level the Lakers did, and its path to the Finals is set to be far more difficult. Irving is a big reason for both of those issues. This is arguably the deepest and the strongest the East has ever been, and thanks to a chaotic and mediocre regular season marred by injuries, trade demands and other self-inflicted drama, the Nets’ path to the Finals not only requires them to somehow find defensive competence on the fly, it requires them to do so on the road against playoff opponents with their own legitimate championship expectations.
Is it possible Irving’s return to full-time status is the thing that tips off the Nets’ first NBA title run? Of course it is. They have Durant and Irving, and just like that 2001 Lakers squad with O’Neal and the late Kobe Bryant proved, if you have two of the league’s best scorers you will be a problem. But that doesn’t guarantee a championship.
Credit: Source link