Toronto bests Brooklyn, but drives still missing from offensive diet

The Brooklyn Nets have been something of a punching bag for the NBA so far this season. At 1-10 after losing to the Toronto Raptors, with the 30th ranked defence in the league, one might think that’s bad enough. But 30th doesn’t cover the true pestilential stink of the Brooklyn defence. Coming into the contest against the Toronto Raptors, the Nets were allowing 129.8 points per 100 possessions. The worst defence last season allowed 120.2. That’s an inconceivable gap between the Nets and a normal worst-in-the-league defence, the same as the gap between last season’s 30th-ranked team and a top-10 defence. So the Nets are a putrid defence.

And yet if the only Nets’ game you have watched this season was against the Raptors, one might have been forgiven for thinking that wasn’t entirely the case. 

For most of the game, Toronto found its path to the rim completely stymied against Brooklyn. Drives were pulling up short, when they even happened in the first place. The paint was a sacred space, undisturbed by the profane presence of a basketball. 

And when the Raptors were able to drive the ball to the rim, the Nets offered real resistance. Noah Clowney and Nic Claxton gave Toronto trouble around the rim, swatting attempts from cutters and drivers alike. Scottie Barnes especially missed hooks and short jumpers from within a crowd. But the Nets aren’t supposed to be that kind of defence; entering the game Brooklyn allowed opponents to shoot 69.9 percent from within six feet, a full 5.9 percentage points higher than expected from those ranges, good for … last in the league. 

What rim attempts the Raptors were able to create, at least early, came in very specific ways. They scored in transition, of course. RJ Barrett’s rip-through dribble has become an automatic blow-by in transition, especially. (Though his drives were particularly absent in the half court against Brooklyn, as he finished with his least efficient scoring game of the season.) And the Raptors were occasionally able to create paint touches and layups off the pass. Barnes screening, slipping, catching, and finishing is always money in the bank. 

As a result, Toronto found itself living and dying by the 3. A casual observer might think that’s kind of what modern NBA offence is. But in fact 3-point shooting is much more often a symptom of good offence rather than a cause of it. Having to bomb away from over the top of a defence because you can’t crack it is not a good thing. Of course, being able to make them helps. And Toronto did shoot well early. It’s good to win the math battle! That hasn’t happened nearly enough in recent years, and it’s a huge positive that Toronto is shooting well from deep on the season. (Even if it went cold later in the game against Brooklyn.) But it would be preferable to create layups.

Toronto’s bench especially came into the game and splashed easy triples early on. Jamal Shead remains steady from deep, which is huge for the trajectory of his career. Ja’Kobe Walter finally got hot and hit a pair of triples. Jamison Battle entered the game, drove off a pump fake, kicked out, relocated to the opposite wing, and splashed an open one from there. (Battle and Gradey Dick is a fun duo, with Dick’s frenetic cutting pace opening space for Battle as a set shooter in his wake.) Even Collin Murray-Boyles hit one from the left wing, rediscovering his hot streak from earlier in the year.  

And because the Nets are, well, 1-10 and a terrible team, Toronto’s middling performance was enough. 

But this poor driving is going to become an issue for the Raptors as they set their sights on climbing the hierarchy of the Eastern Conference. 

Toronto entered the season as a top-half driving team, both in terms of drives per game and field-goal percentage on those drives. But peek deeper under the hood, and all is not well off the bounce for Toronto. The Raptors aren’t getting deep enough on drives, frequently ending up in the mid range rather than deep in the paint. From there, players like Immanuel Quickly are opting for floaters, Brandon Ingram and Barnes for jumpers. But few are actually getting layups. (Other than Barrett, who as a result of his driving deep into the paint has long been a uniquely beneficial cog of Toronto’s offence.) And as a team they’re hitting those pull-ups quite well, for now, but that’s not creating juicy passing opportunities. The team passes on a huge portion of its drives, but it is 24th in assist rate out of drives. The team is driving, but it isn’t creating enough advantages or easy buckets out of those drives.

Ingram isn’t solving this particular deficit. He’s scoring exceptionally well on drives, but he isn’t creating too much for teammates, and nor is he creating layups for himself. While he is hitting his middy jumpers like no Raptor since Kawhi Leonard or DeMar DeRozan, he isn’t shifting the defence on those drives. At least, not enough.

And Barnes’ drives have fallen off a cliff. He’s averaging 5.2 drives per game and shooting 34.5 percent on those drives. That’s basically half as many drives as he averaged in each of his last few seasons and more than a 10 percentage point drop in accuracy. He’s just not reaching the paint with the ball in his hands. While Barnes is playing phenomenally so far this season, this is one area in which his output has declined.

Toronto opened the second half against Brooklyn with an uncontested dunk for Jakob Poeltl, dimed by Barnes in the pick and roll. Then an offensive rebound fell to Barnes, and he threw a no-look to a cutting Quickley for a layup. The best moment was a Poeltl lob to Barnes, which Barnes touch-passed back to Poeltl for an uncontested dunk. The Nets can only be solid for so long. A couple Ingram mid-range pullups later, and the game would have seemed over.

But those flashy third-quarter assists were, in some ways, a short cut rather than the real thing. Passing for layups is terrific. But it’s not always available. Ditto for transition layups. The best teams need players who can reach the rim, themselves, by dribbling the basketball all the way down the gut of a half-court defence. It is a huge part of the success of a surprising team like the Detroit Pistons this season, whose Cade Cunningham is torching the league — and is third in drives on the season. He will hit the paint or die trying.

And indeed, Toronto couldn’t pass for layups to end the third quarter, and the Nets fought right back into the game. Especially when the team went cold from 3, there just wasn’t any sustainable source of offence to be found. The guards finally made magic to put the game away. Shead drove for a three-foot floater to end the third quarter. Quickley did the same early in the fourth. Paint touches off the bounce come easiest from guards.

The Raptors need better driving from their guards, from their wings, from someone. That Shead consistently hits the paint with such verve is a big part of the reason why he is third on the team in on/off differential. And the lack of such a skill was a big part of why Toronto disappointed early against Brooklyn and then let it back into the game late. 

If nothing else, Brooklyn has reinforced for Toronto this lesson: more Raptors outside of Barrett and Shead need to drive more and deeper. The offence in general has been very good so far on the season. But there is room for much more.

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