NBA January Takeaway: Can the Brooklyn Nets play any defense?
The quick answer is probably no. At least not with the current roster they have. I’m not questioning the Brooklyn Nets‘ decision to trade essentially all of their depth and future draft picks for James Harden, any time you get a chance to acquire a player like that I think you do it. However, the move is evidence of an unapologetic strategy of simply trying to outscore the opponent and overwhelm them with offensive force.
Brooklyn is currently 2-6 in games in which they don’t score 120 points, meaning that if they aren’t lighting up the scoreboard on offense then they haven’t shown they are capable of winning another way. And most of that sample size is before they traded away Jarrett Allen who was their best defender.
The question that we can’t answer until the playoffs are will their defensive problems even matter? A trio of Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving is never going to be elite defensively, but at the same time, they have the potential to be a historically great offense. No team in NBA history has had a collection of elite isolation scorers that rivals this group.
Can they win four out of seven games against the Bucks, 76ers, or Lakers by playing mediocre (at best) defense? I don’t know, check back with me in the summer.