The circumstances surrounding Saturday’s game against the Celtics couldn’t be tougher for the Nets.
Fresh off a four-game road trip ending Friday in Chicago, the Nets will be playing on the second night of their first back-to-back of the season. Boston, meanwhile, comes to Barclays Center fresh, having last suited up Wednesday.
The Nets are still nursing key injuries, with the calf strain Cam Johnson suffered in the first game of the season set to be re-evaluated next week. Nic Claxton, who sprained an ankle in the season opener, also hasn’t played since.
That’s not to mention the reloaded Celtics are really, really good. They’re a legit 4-0 with their margin of victory increasing in every win — most recently with a 51-point blowout of the Indiana Pacers.
It all adds up to Saturday being the ultimate early-season stress test for the new-look Nets.
Now 10 months removed from the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving era, the superstar-less Nets have largely lived up to their manta of competing with effort and depth. They hung close in losses to the playoff-contending Cavaliers and Mavericks; cruised to a convincing win over the less-talented Hornets; and had unlikely heroes emerge in a comeback victory over the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Miami Heat.
Boston is a different animal, boasting superstar talent at the top and enviable depth to supplement it.
Jayson Tatum is off to another stellar start, averaging 29.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists. Fellow well-rounded wing Jaylen Brown is also playing at an All-Star pace, averaging 22.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and a team-leading 1.5 steals. Both are plus defenders, as is battle-tested point guard Jrue Holiday, the five-time All-Defensive Team selection whom Boston acquired right before the season.
The Celtics’ other All-Star addition over the offseason, Kristaps Porzingis, has also made an immediate impact. The matchup-nightmare center is averaging 18.8 points and sank a game-winning three-pointer against his original team, the Knicks, in Boston’s season opener.
How the rebuilt Nets, even in their undermanned state, hold up against the juggernaut Celtics will say much about their work-in-progress identity and how they measure up against the East’s elite.
Can they make life difficult for standout scorers like Tatum and Brown, who excel at getting to the basket and are both shooting above 40% from three? Throughout the preseason, the Nets preached their potential as a lockdown defense, with the lanky Mikal Bridges, Ben Simmons and Dorian Finney-Smith among those capable of guarding multiple positions.
They’ve struggled thus far against opposing All-Stars, however, with Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell scoring 27 points on 11-of-21 shooting and Dallas’ Luka Doncic exploding for 49 points on 16-of-25. Both dominated down the stretches of their games and finished off victories with go-ahead three-pointers. Brooklyn fared better against Miami’s Jimmy Butler, who put up 20 points on 7-of-16 shooting and was held scoreless over the final four minutes.
Can Cam Thomas deliver another offensive outburst? The 22-year-old sensation scored at least 30 points in each of the Nets’ first three games but came back to Earth against defensive-minded Miami, struggling to find any rhythm in an ugly 13-point effort on 4-of-19 shooting. It only gets harder against Holiday and company.
The 6-3 Thomas’ defense could also prove a liability against capable backcourt scorers in Holiday and Derrick White.
Will the Nets have an answer for Porzingis? They certainly didn’t against another uniquely talented — albeit very different — All-Star center in Miami’s uber-athletic Bam Adebayo, who scored 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting and grabbed 14 rebounds. The Nets repeatedly rolled out a small starting lineup without the 6-10 Claxton, with the 6-7 Finney-Smith suiting up as the de facto center. That won’t cut it against the 7-3 Porzingis, who is shooting 45% from three.
And can Bridges rise to the occasion and keep up with Boston’s stars? Bridges, who last season averaged 26.1 points in the 27 games after the Nets acquired him in the Durant trade, saw that mark drop to 20.8 through the first four games of this season.
Bridges has spoken about his desire to emerge as the Nets’ go-to guy. After being held scoreless in the fourth quarter of the Dallas loss, Bridges stepped up as Brooklyn’s closer in the win over Miami, scoring nine of the Nets’ final 11 points and assisting on the other two.
The schedule-makers did the Nets no favors to start the season, between the early four-game road trip and a downright brutal upcoming stretch in which they host the Celtics on Saturday, the Bucks on Monday and the Clippers on Wednesday before traveling to Boston for another bout with the Celtics next Friday.
“I want us to embrace that,” Nets coach Jacque Vaugn said last month of the tough schedule. “It’s extremely important for us to be ready to play at the beginning of this year to kind of set an avenue, a tone, for us going forward.”
Saturday marks his team’s greatest litmus test yet.
Peter Sblendorio
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