Lichtenstein: I'm Begging You — Stop Pairing D-Will And Jack In Crunch Time
By Steve Lichtenstein
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The Nets were only trailing Utah, 78-75, with 5:45 remaining in the fourth quarter at Barclays Center Sunday night, but the ensuing substitution horn might as well have been a death knell.
For at that particular moment, Brooklyn coach Lionel Hollins decided to double up on his point guards for the first time that evening, bringing a rested Deron Williams back onto the court to pair with--not substitute for--Jarrett Jack.
Never mind that the season-long statistics show that this combination has been an abject disaster for Brooklyn. The Nets had been outscored by an average of 11.3 points per 100 possessions in the 553 minutes the duo shared the court leading up to Sunday, per basketball-reference.com.
I spent a few paragraphs in my last post explaining why it hasn't worked. Jack tends to look for his own shot as the primary option when he is the facilitator and--when it's Williams' turn to take the reins to create offense off pick-and-rolls--Jack's poor three-point shooting makes him useless when he's standing at the opposite corner. Defensively, neither has done well recently at either containing penetration or closing out on shooters at the three-point line.
So if you don't believe the advanced metrics, the eye test should suffice.
Neither deterred Hollins, who keeps pounding that square peg into that round hole just a game after the duo muffed a 15-point lead over the final 5:45 of the fourth quarter during an unfathomable 108-100 overtime loss at home to Phoenix on Friday.
Sunday's stretch run was no different. The Jazz took off on a 14-5 run and coasted to a 95-88 victory.
Hollins had a simple explanation for the Nets latest end-game failure: "Turnovers, missed shots and no defense," he said.
The turnovers were killer and Jack was the culprit who slit his own team's throat. In a crucial four possession span, Jack threw away two passes and mishandled a ball that went out of bounds.
Immediately after that last one, I saw Williams bark something at Hollins, possibly out of frustration. The Nets are paying D-Will nearly $20 million this season to take over in such situations, yet Hollins has too often given the keys to Jack.
Unfortunately, it's been costing the Nets too many games.
Williams downplayed the underperforming dynamic with Jack. "As a team—not just me and Jarrett—we're (not executing) down the stretch," said Williams.
It hasn't helped that Williams happens to be in the midst of another one of his shooting mental blocks. I watched D-Will warm up from long distance before Sunday's game and let's just say that I didn't have high expectations. His 2-for-5 outing did bring his four-game shooting percentage for the month of March up to almost 30 percent, though.
And while Jack did connect on three big-time shots late in games to cement wins over the Clippers, Knicks, and the Warriors in the last month or so, he also has a knack for taking contested mid-range jumpers at the most inopportune moments.
Jack's most recent dagger—the jump shot over Golden State star Stephen Curry with 1.1 seconds remaining last Monday--appeared to be a springboard for a Nets revival post All-Star break. It was the Nets' fourth win in six games, with four winnable home games to follow.
Except that the Nets were blown out by Charlotte and gagged down the stretch in losses to Phoenix and Utah. Now only New Orleans on Tuesday remains in this schedule portion.
"We take one step forward and two steps back," said Williams. "That's kind of been the theme of the season."
This campaign is looking to be one that Hollins should wish he could wipe off his resume. Even when Hollins corrected a noticeable team defect (repeat after me: Joe Johnson is NOT a power forward) by finally starting recently-acquired Thaddeus Young on Sunday, he erased much of the goodwill by utilizing five-man bench units.
In the four minutes during the second quarter when that unit was on the floor, it was outscored, 10-4, by Utah. In two minutes bridging the third and fourth quarters, the Jazz outscored the Nets B team, 8-4.
This is not the University of Kentucky. Good coaches stagger their substitutions so that this doesn't happen.
And what about all these recent games where Hollins had Johnson miscast as a "4"?
What Hollins has done to the Nets most prolific scorer this season has been egregious. These days Johnson looks like he belongs in an over-40 league. Though Johnson denied it, the weight of banging with bigger bodies on both ends seems to have taken a toll.
Johnson was 8-for-24 from the floor (and only 1-for-7 from three-point range) in the first three games of the homestand. Twenty-three million for a six points-per-game scorer.
It got so bad that Johnson wasn't even on the floor against the Suns in the final seconds of a tie game on Friday. What blasphemy to do that to the man Kevin Garnett dubbed "Joe Jesus" after Johnson's penchant for delivering in the clutch last season.
Who knows if Hollins will stick with the Young/Cory Jefferson power forward platoon that produced 25 combined points on Sunday? It's clear that Young is a superior defender at the position (Young had four steals and numerous other point-saving rotations of helping the helper that Johnson would/could never have done) and that Jefferson brings a youthful "go-get-it" attitude on the glass that this team so desperately needs.
Will this one game influence Hollins? In my view, he's been stubborn to a fault for much of the season. Others might look at these matters as signs of Hollins' patience--Hollins has been dealt a lousy hand by general manager Billy King and maybe he is using this season to fairly evaluate his personnel for the future. Hollins' most appealing feature during his candidacy to replace Jason Kidd last summer was his record of improving his Grizzlies every year.
Besides, making the playoffs this season is looking more and more like a pipe dream every week. The Nets are now a season-high 11 games under .500 and have fallen into 11th place in the ragamuffin Eastern Conference.
"I'm trying not to go the way of a couple of coaches that are in beer commercials," said Hollins. "If we play well enough, if we're good enough, we'll make the playoffs. But if we don't, we won't."
These Nets are so far from good, they can't even see mediocre. And when Williams and Jack play together, they are even worse. Call off the experiment.
For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Jets and the NHL, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1.
