Steve Nash not giving Nets enough bench points
Nets head coach Steve Nash shouts from the bench in the first half of Game 1 of an NBA Eastern Conference first-round playoff series against the Celtics on Sunday in Boston. Credit: AP/Steven Senne
The Nets never saw Steve Nash as a traditional coach. In fact, when Nash was hired two years ago, Kyrie Irving said they were a team that really didn’t need to have a head coach.
In a conversation with Kevin Durant on Durant’s podcast before the start of last season, Irving and Durant agreed that the Nets’ head coaching role would be a “collaborative effort” despite the recent hiring of Nash. Irving went on to say the situation could change the way the league views coaches.
“I don’t really see us as having a head coach,” Irving said. “KD could be a head coach. I could be a head coach.”
Suffice to say, when the Nets fell apart in the fourth quarter Wednesday night in Boston, they could have used a traditional head coach.
Ime Udoka, the former Nets assistant who was hired to be the head man in Boston this season, certainly played that role well. Udoka outcoached his former boss by putting together a smothering defensive game plan against Durant and Irving.
The two superstars shot a combined 8-for-30 in a 114-107 Game 2 loss and the Nets are down 2-0 as they head home. Game 3 is Saturday night at Barclays Center.
Coaching today is a complicated dance where it is just as important that a coach juggle the egos and personalities of his superstar players as it is to plan and make adjustments in a game. Nash gets high marks in the first area as it’s hard to come up with a coach who has had more thrown at him — injuries to star players, Irving’s vaccine drama, James Harden’s trade demands — than Nash has this season.
“I think he’s done a great job,” Durant said before the start of the playoffs. “The last two years, he’s been dealt a wild hand: injuries, trades, disgruntled players, guys in and out of the lineup, and stuff that he can’t control. I felt like he’s handled it the best he could.”
Yet, as was clearly demonstrated Wednesday, the Nets' offense is simply too predictable, too dependent on plays from their superstars. This is something that Udoka took away from his one year on the Nets' staff last season.
Udoka has come up with a great defensive plan on Durant. After holding him to 23 points in Game 1, Boston turned up the volume on their aggressive, physical defense even more and held the two-time MVP to 4-for-17 shooting in Game 2 with 18 of his 27 points coming from the free-throw line.
“It does help. It was beneficial being around them last year,” Udoka said when asked about putting together a defensive game plan to slow Durant. “It goes back further to many series with Durant when I was in San Antonio against Oklahoma City and Golden State. Then you get to know them more intimately when you are coaching them and being around them for a season. Me being a defensive guy, it was beneficial to be with them and see some of the things other teams have done against them.”
Boston’s defense was particularly effective in the final quarter when the Celtics went on a 13-2 run that left the Nets looking overwhelmed and shell-shocked.
While it’s not Nash’s fault that his stars weren’t hitting shots, it was incumbent on him to try to shake his team out of its stupor with well-placed timeouts or a couple of called plays. Nash believes in letting his players work it out, but this is one time where they needed some kind of assist from the bench.
Nash was asked after the game if there was anything he could have done on the fly during the game, especially during Boston’s runs in the second and fourth quarters.
“I think in hindsight you could always come up with something,” Nash said Wednesday. “But there’s no guarantee that whatever your adjustment is is going to work, so it’s 20-20 looking backwards.”
No, there’s no looking backward. You have to start from where you are. The Nets have two games at home and a chance to hold serve.
The Nets have been a team like no other this year. They’ve tried to play with three superstars, they’ve tried to play with a part-time point guard, they’ve had an 11-game losing streak and they've beaten the best teams in the league.
The one thing they haven’t done is change the way the league views the job of head coaches, as Irving predicted two years ago. At least not in this series.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
