The mysterious case of Kris Humphries and the ailing Nets
Reggie Evans finds Brook Lopez. NBA.com
1:39 pm Dec. 17, 20123
The Brooklyn Nets saw their record fall to 13-10, with an 83-82 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night.
It's not clear to anyone, least of all the Nets, why their play has dropped off so sharply after an 11-4 start to the season.
Though many of those losses came without Brook Lopez, the Nets received excellent play from Andray Blatche in Lopez's absence. And Lopez not only played Saturday night against the Bulls, he played quite well, with 18 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks in just over 25 minutes.
One variable is coach Avery Johnson's use of Kris Humphries. In recent games, the Nets have seen far less of Humphries and far more Reggie Evans, who replaced Humphries in the starting lineup over the past five games.
This was supposed to be due to Johnson's preference to keep Evans and Blatche together, to last until Lopez returned. But in the past two games, Lopez and Evans have started together.
And over the past five games, Evans has played just under 30 minutes per contest; Humphries' average is at just 16.7. So for practical purposes, Evans has been the primary power forward.
It's not hard to see why Johnson made this choice. Evans has been posting eye-popping rebounding numbers, grabbing 18 of them against the Knicks last week, and putting up 10 double-digit rebounding games already.
Humphries isn't far behind, though, with a high of 21 earlier this year, and seven double-digit rebounding games to date.
The thing about Evans is, rebounding is all he does. He's not a particularly gifted defender. His field goal percentage this season is 59 percent, but that is way out of line from his career mark of 46 percent, a very poor efficiency from someone whose shots are almost all putbacks right around the rim. And his season-high in shots taken this season in any game is just four.
This lack of complementary skills is the reason Evans signed a one-year, veterans' minimum deal with the Nets. And the reason Humphries got two years, $24 million this offseason was because he can rebound nearly as well as Evans, while scoring efficiently and defending well.
Other than a slight dip in his field goal shooting so far, Humphries has been every bit the player he was last season, and the season before. Playing Evans over Humphries means more attention on defending Brook Lopez inside. It means opponents can move more quickly to help defend Deron Williams and Joe Johnson, since the Nets are essentially playing 5-on-4 on the offensive end. It simply doesn't make them as effective an offensive team, and it is that offense that needs to carry them as far as they'll go.
And the tradeoff doesn't yield much in the way of defense, or even rebounding.
Reggie Evans entered the season in a contest with Mirza Teletovic for backup power forward minutes, and his rebounding made him a great fit to take those minutes.
But playing Evans over Humphries, to judge by the Nets' record, isn't helping anyone.
Howard you hit the nail on the head but not hard enough. Blatch and Evans are pleasant surprise additions to the bench. Remember they both were team-less and that is not by accident. With limited back-up minutes they can be great assets to this or any team but not with significant minutes.
That brings us to the issue of roles. To be successful a team needs ALL of its parts (players) pulling in the same direction. This happens when each player knows and embraces his role. The Nets do not have roles established for each player yet. Coach is over-coaching and as such putting people in positions to fail instead of having each player know, understand, and fulfill his role.
The Nets starting lineup of Lopez at the 5, Humphries at the 4, Wallace at the 3, Johnson at the 2, and Williams at the 1 is as good as any team in the league. This is becasue each player is extremely good at doing the things that are needed to fill their specific positions needs. You have it all on offense with 4 guys who can score 30 on any given night plus the 5th who can score in double figures. Where the real plus comes in is on defense. Humphries, Wallace, and Williams can help enough on defense to make up for Lopez and Johnson's defensive shortcomings thereby giving the team an advantage over most other teams. Not many have 3 real tough defenders in their starting lineup.
Then we have to look at the substitution patterns. The starters need to know they are getting their minutes so they can be comfortable playing their game. The back-ups need to fill in and then be comfortable going back to the bench to let the team do what it was designed to do.
I went to the Heat game in Miami and must tell you that it was obvious that we threw that game away just like many of the other loses. These are not machine parts that work perfectly on demand when installed. Coach is too enamored with "small ball" and it costs the team victories. Wallace is one of the better small forwards in the league but only a mediocre power forward. Johnson is one of the best shooting guards in the league but only a mediocre small forward. Stay with the team as designed and built and the victories will pile up. Keep over-coaching and think we are smarter than all of the other teams and the losses will continue to mount up AGAIN.
Williams on the bench until 4 minutes left in a close game is absurd. The team paid him for a reason and coach needs to trust the GM knew what he was doing when the team was put together. Remember that Coach of the Year got fired because small ball did not work in Dallas just like it has not worked in the vast majority of the time in the NBA. Miami was an exception but that experiment is proving to be short lived as teams see you can beat the Heat with big's playing tough.
An old time New York basketball junkie.
Howard Megdal makes some very good observations about the recent case of Chris Humphries. I've been watching the Nets' stats recently also, and have been quite puzzled by the lack of play-time for Humphries.
The humph needs minutes. He is the most vocal player on the teams defensive end. Avery tinkers to much. How are players expected to understand their rolls when the coach doesn't it is somewhat of self destructive coaching technique.
Glad he ain't our coach