Nets' early-season problems: Turnovers, rebounding and defense

Life as a first-time NBA head coach has not treated Steve Nash well. On Sunday, the Hall of Fame point guard looked on helplessly as superstars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant each missed clean looks at a game-winning shot in the final 10 seconds of a loss to the lowly Wizards to drop to 3-4 after four losses in the past five games.

On Monday, Nash received the news that Durant had been exposed to someone outside the Nets organization who tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, Durant was declared out of the Nets’ game against the Jazz on Tuesday night at Barclays Center, and his return is uncertain because it depends on NBA protocols that require him to quarantine for seven days.

For the time being without Durant, coach Steve Nash said the Nets simply have to focus on solving their early-season problems with turnovers, rebounding and defense. "We’ve just got to stick with it and play the long game and know that, in time, Kevin will be back and we’ll forget about this window that he missed," Nash said.

In Sunday’s one-point loss to the Wizards, the Nets committed 20 turnovers leading to 23 Wizards points, and they allowed 13 offensive rebounds that gave the Wizards a 17-4 advantage in second-chance points. As a result, the Wizards got 23 more shots than the Nets. It was a lethal combination.

"We know that’s a weakness of ours," Nash said after the Wizards game. "They shot 41 percent and they took 23 more shots than us. It’s tough to win when a team gets 23 more shots. Second-chance points, a lot of those are layups. Even more glaring was the turnovers – 20 turnovers for 23 points. That’s tough. We can see all those things and we had two looks at it to win the game, two good looks. They didn’t go down. We’ve got a lot of things to clean up."

Indeed, the Nets do. Their two superstars, Durant and Irving, combined to produce 11 of the Nets’ 20 turnovers against the Wizards, Durant had six and Irving had five.

"Just uncharacteristic, careless," Nash said. "I didn’t think there was a lot of turnovers under great pressure. So, I thought it was uncharacteristic…It wasn’t like we were having trouble generating offense. A lot of them were just strange ones."

That was so true. There were several times when Durant and Irving threw passes to teammates who had vacated a particular spot on the court and weren’t even close to where the ball wound up going. Frankly, it was an embarrassing display.

After the game, Durant took responsibility, saying, "I’m turning the ball over too much."

It’s hard to see how the Nets survive without Durant’s offensive firepower. Irving is averaging 26.8 points, so, he is an obvious source to carry the Nets, but Caris LeVert will have to step up. He is averaging only 13.1 points on poor 37.3% shooting and is shooting only 27.3% from three-point range. Last season, LeVert averaged 18.7 points and shot 42.5% overall and 36.4% from three-point range. It’s early, so his numbers easily can improve.

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.