When Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson were long-time starters for the Phoenix Suns, their defensive instincts were trained for drop coverage in pick-and-roll situations.
The Suns almost never switched defenders when guarding an on-ball screen. Brooklyn, on the other hand, switches more screens than almost any other team in the league.
Johnson and Bridges have had their work cut out for them.
On a superstar-less Nets team, they have both assumed larger offensive roles. They have done so while also adjusting to the change in terminology, going from Monty Williams’ coaching staff in Phoenix to Jacque Vaughn’s in Brooklyn.
Offense was expected to come along slower for a Nets team that profiles as a defensive juggernaut. In order to tap into that potential on the defensive side of the floor, however, the Nets’ starting wings need to unlearn much of what they were taught in Phoenix.
”Not to make any excuses, right, but for four years, I’ve had a coaching staff who was very adamant on certain principles,” Johnson said. “It’s on us to execute them on a high level, and after day after day after day of working on them, they get a little ingrained in your head. So some of the principles we have in Brooklyn are almost complete opposite. So a lot of it is largely the same — defense: you’ve got to stop the other team — but once we kind of iron those instances where you’re reacting a quarter of a second later, I think our defense will be a lot sharper once that becomes instinct.”
Nic Claxton’s versatility traditionally hides problems, but in this instance, it’s created one.
When in Phoenix, Bridges and Johnson became accustomed to Suns big man DeAndre Ayton dropping back on pick-and-roll scenarios to defend the ball handler on a drive to the rim.
Claxton’s versatility, however, is why the Nets can switch everything one through five. He can defend most point guards and every other position efficiently.
Johnson and Bridges aren’t used to having this kind of luxury.
“There’s a couple rotations that I know personally over the past five games that I’ve missed just because I’m kind of caught in a middle ground where my mind is reverting back to old habits,” Johnson said. “But I think it’s getting better. As long as we continue to clean it up, I think when we’re the aggressors on the defensive end. It covers for a lot of that indecisiveness. So it’s a work in progress and it’s something I think we’ll be able to build off of.”
The shootarounds help. So does the scarce practice time in a jam-packed NBA schedule.
The Nets surrendered additional shootaround time in the months leading into the trade deadline so they could preserve legs for players tallying high minutes.
If only those shootaround opportunities rolled over like cell-phone minutes.
With games virtually every other day, the Nets are hard pressed to find additional time to hammer home their principles on the court. Much of what they do is learning on the fly, meaning they use real in-game minutes to iron out how they want to play.
“That’s always tough, just being somewhere and the principles are just pretty much different,” Bridges said after shootaround Tuesday morning. “But like I said, today, having shootaround, it just helps to go over what we’re really doing. I felt like just personally, I understand way more. I love to play defense, and me being confused on defense is not good for me. So I’m just happy that we had this day — even yesterday, a little off day — talked to coach about defense and everything. And it’s been great, very helpful.”
Mike Budenholzer can’t relate.
The Milwaukee Bucks have had the same core group of players for what feels like the better part of the last decade.
”We’ve had so much continuity with our group,” he said ahead of tipoff against the Nets on Tuesday. “We’ve been very, very fortunate.”
The Bucks, however, did add a former Phoenix Sun — Jae Crowder — to their roster midseason.
Unlike both Bridges and Johnson, Crowder didn’t get any playing time with this year’s Suns.
”He kinda came to us as a clean slate after the last six or so months,” Budenholzer joked.
The championship-winning Bucks coach, though, empathized with the Nets’ current struggle. It’s not like Bridges and Johnson are NBA journeymen, like Crowder. The Suns’ system is all they’ve known.
“It’s learning new techniques and skills, a new kind of mindset. And again, for players who have done it multiple times, it’s probably easier than if it’s your first time changing, and concepts, teachings, and technique and mindset — there’s gonna be an adjustment period,” he said. “There’s gonna be a growth time. So it’s not easy for guys to do that.”
Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau has been around the block enough times with head coaching stops in Minnesota and Chicago to know the difficulties of integrating new players mid season.
“When you make a trade that’s the challenge,” he said. “It’s similar to the offseason, free agency, you get new players in, and then every year, when we go into camp, it’s how quickly can we adapt and get onto the same page.”
Thibodeau, known as a defensive guru, said it’s on the Nets to establish their new identity irrespective of their old philosophies or their newcomers’ familiarity with different concepts.
As the Nets navigate a make-or-break second half of the season that will dictate whether or not the team will retain its playoff standing, they are also figuring out what style of play works best for a lineup that has four new starters — including Bridges and Johnson, who are trying to make it work even though their instincts are fighting them every step of the way.
“There’s a lot of different ways to do it, and do it well. Whether you switch or stay with your own, you show or you blitz, whatever. You’ve got to execute as a group,” Thibodeau said. “So get onto the same page. It doesn’t matter — you’ve gotta make it your way. What are the Nets? What are the Knicks? And that’s the challenge every team has.”
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