Nets know they need to get non-Big 3 players involved in offense for Game 4

BOSTON — On the surface, it’s impressive that the Nets got 96 points from the Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against the Celtics. But they only got 23 points from the rest of the supporting cast in a 125-119 loss that cut their series lead to 2-1 going into Game 4 on Sunday night at TD Garden.

Harden had 41 points and Durant 39, so those two alone well offset the 50-point performance of Celtics star Jayson Tatum. But as good as Harden and Durant were, they didn’t get enough help. In a sense, the Nets did exactly what the Celtics wanted by running repeated isolation plays for their stars instead of involving everyone in the offense, as they did in their blowout Game 2 victory.

"I thought for big portions, we got a little stagnant," Nets coach Steve Nash said. "We got away from our movement. James was scoring in isolation, Kevin was scoring in isolation, but I still think that we can be more difficult to guard in general if we move the ball and get to isolations as a second resort. We’ve got to learn from this, take something from it."

Game 3 was just the 11th game together for the Big 3 this season. So it’s obvious the easiest thing for them to do at this point is to rely on their one-on-one ability to score. After all, they are three of the greatest isolation players in the NBA. But the Nets have shown they are more effective when they space the floor and move the ball until it finds open shooters.

That’s what happened in Game 2, when Joe Harris made seven three-pointers and scored 25 points to provide a huge lift to the Big 3. But he had a 3-for-9 shooting performance in Game 3 and totaled just eight points.

Asked if the Celtics made an adjustment to force the Nets into running more isolation offense, Harris said: "No, I don’t think there was anything necessarily the Celtics did defensively. We just have such good playmakers that we want to put them in situations where they’re facilitating and creating with the ball in their hands. But we also want to make it easier on them, too, and make it tougher on the Celtics, make them guard action. If that means you end up getting to an isolation, it means you’ve guarded some actions. It’s not just right into it."

Harris added: "It’s not to say that the offense wasn’t any good because we still were pretty efficient offensively. But you want it to transition to the defensive end, as well. I felt like in Game 2, because of how we played offensively — continuity, spreading them out, moving the ball — it had a direct effect on the defense where we were really engaged, as well."

Indeed, the Nets played far better defense in Game 2 than in Game 3, when they gave up 125 points. Their efficiency on offense helped the defense because the Celtics had to take the ball out of the basket so often and couldn’t get up and down in transition as easily.

So Nash’s message to his team between games was to focus on ball movement and finding the open shooter.

"We talked with the guys about ball movement, trying to get to our actions more often," Nash said. "They’re so good at isolation that sometimes they’re having success in isolation, but maybe it’s hard to see how it’s limiting the overall picture. We have to find that balance. We’re going to isolate, but being able to get to our actions more often is definitely something we talked about."

By Greg Logan

Gregory.Logan@newsday.comGregLogan1

Greg Logan has worked for Newsday since 1982 covering a wide array of sports and events, currently including the Brooklyn Nets beat.