The Brooklyn Nets’ season imploded just as it began.
A poor start on the court coincided with Kyrie Irving pushing an antisemitic film and book, coach Steve Nash’s firing, the franchise exploring suspended Boston coach Ime Udoka as their next coach and the Nets suspending Irving.
It was a mess.
But once the controversies settled and the focus became basketball, the Nets started winning games led by a dynamic offense featuring Kevin Durant and Irving, the return of previously sidelined players and Jacque Vaughn’s pragmatic approach.
Since that deflating 2-5 start, the Nets are 15-7 and have moved into fourth place in the Eastern Conference, just half a game behind third-place Cleveland. During that 22-game stretch, Brooklyn has the No. 8 offense, No. 6 defense and No. 5 net rating. The Nets are playing like the team many thought they could be.
“We’ve committed ourselves to playing for and with each other,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “That starts on the defensive end of the floor. We just ask the guys to play hard. At the end of the day, you can cover up a lot of things just by playing hard – just taking that approach, and I’ll continue to talk about the consistency of playing hard. That’s our next challenge.”
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Kyrie Irving (11) high fives Kevin Durant during 120-116 win over the Atlanta Hawks at Barclays Center on Dec. 9.
Pieces are starting to fit. Irving, Durant, Joe Harris, Royce O’Neale and Nic Claxton form the starting lineup with Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Cam Thomas, T.J. Warren and Yuta Watanabe providing bench production. At the start of the season, Simmons, Curry, Harris and Warren weren’t ready to contribute valuable minutes.
“This group has started to learn about each other, the rotations, who plays well with each other on both ends of the floor,” Vaughn said.
Since the team started returning players to the rotation and during this six-week turnaround, the Nets are shooting 50.6% from the field and 38.3 on 3-pointers, good for second- and seventh-best.
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It helps to have two of the NBA’s best scorers on the same team. Durant averages 30 points and 5.5 assists and shoots 55.9% from the field and 34.6% on 3s, and Irving is at 25.3 points and 4.6 assists per game and 47.9% from the field. Watanabe, O’Neale and Curry are shooting at least 40% on 3s and Harris is close at 37.3%.
“We continue to keep trusting each other on the offensive end,” Durant said. “We take efficient shots. We’re an efficient ballclub on the offensive side of the ball, too, so that helps our defense. We try to hang our out hat on keeping our man in front of us and guarding one-on-one and provide help when needed. That’s sustainable in any form of basketball.”
The through line in Brooklyn’s success is Durant. Take a look at any of the Nets’ best two-, three-, four- and five-man lineups and he is the constant figure among their most successful. He draws so much attention from defenses, is so difficult to defend and finds open teammates when he doesn’t have a scoring option. It’s early, but there’s no reason why Durant can’t be part of the MVP conversation late in the season.
Can the Nets keep this going? The East is tough, and while they have the sixth-easiest remaining schedule according to tankathon.com, it’s still not a cakewalk with three games remaining against each of Milwaukee, Boston and Cleveland, the three teams in front of them in the standings.
But positives that can’t be ignored have emerged from what looked like the beginning of a disastrous season. It’s not a hopeless situation anymore.
“We’re just going to do our jobs every day and live the results at the end of the season,” Irving said. “(It) will be clicking. We just need to put in the work. … Let’s go win ballgames. That’s really the attitude. We know the talent we have. This is our group. No more excuses. No more distractions. We want everybody to be healthy, have fun, coming in and playing their game.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brooklyn Nets making surprise turnaround after season-opening turmoil
