At last! NBA basketball has returned, and the Brooklyn Nets played the mighty Los
Angeles Lakers in game 1 of preseason.
The excitement began before the game even started. Surprisingly, Nets guard Cam Thomas was moved into the starting lineup in place of the injured Cam Johnson.
While Thomas is not expected to start in most games, it is a positive sign from Vaughn and the coaching staff regarding their view of Thomas as they have him as the next man up when Johnson got hurt.
To start off the game, despite being passive for the entirety of last season, Ben Simmons
goes strong to the rim against LeBron James and banks it off the glass to score the Nets' first points of the game.
Nets led 35-34 after the 1st, despite being out rebounded by the Lakers, Simmons & Thomas were aggressive and able to make up the difference. In the 2nd quarter, the Nets
struggled to hit their 3s, and the Lakers starters built a huge lead.
Despite being down by 14 points at halftime, the Nets clawed their way back into the
game in the 3rd quarter thanks to the efforts of Cam Thomas, who had 17 points on 6-7 FG in the 3rd.
After proving the Nets can play competitive basketball with the Lakers, Vaughn let the
bench take over. Lonnie Walker took over in the 4th, finishing the game with 14 points on 5-12 FG, and Noah Clowney finished the game with 8 rebounds in just 15 minutes. Despite losing the game 129-126, the Nets were able to play competitive basketball against a contending team.
Positives
Ben Simmons came out strong to start preseason, attacking the basket without fear of
getting fouled. Simmons finished the game with 10 points and 3 assists on 4-6 FG and 2-4 FT in just 14 minutes. He even attempted a mid-range jump shot, something fans want to see more of.
Despite taking more pull-up 3s than catch & shoot 3s throughout his entire career,
Spencer Dinwiddie did an excellent job playing off the ball during game 1 of preseason. Hitting several contested 3s, finishing the game with 12 points on 4-5 3PT.
Finally, the man of the hour, Cam Thomas. While it was questionable whether or not he
would even be in the rotation, Thomas was put into the starting lineup and showed defensive improvement. While he was still a score-first guard, he showed moments of passing, having a nice pass to a cutting Ben Simmons and an excellent pass to Harry Giles under the rim. However, offense is where Thomas shines, finishing the game with 26 points on 9-14 FG in just 22 minutes. Getting into a shootout with Austin Reaves, Thomas single-handedly made the game competitive again by scoring 17 points in the 3rd quarter.
Negatives
The Brooklyn Nets struggled defensively. While drop coverage has its benefits, several Nets defenders had trouble fighting over the screen, which resulted in driving layups and open 3-pointers. The Lakers ended up going 20-55 from 3PT (36.4%).
As expected, the Nets had trouble rebounding, while only getting out rebounded 48-44 by the end of the game; that was mostly due to Anthony Davis not playing most of the game.Unfortunately, Nets Center DayRon Sharpe had to leave the game with an ankle sprain, further exacerbating the Nets rebounding issues.
While Thomas did an excellent job of carrying the offense, the bench unit struggled to
score without the starters, causing the Lakers to take such a heavy lead in the 2nd quarter to begin with.
Overall, while there were several positive takeaways from this game, there are some
schemes and rotations the Nets coaching staff need to figure out in order to accommodate the weaknesses of the bench unit, as well as being able to implement the new drop coverage defense.
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