The Brooklyn Nets sit at 2-4 going into the last game of their home stand. Brooklyn takes on the Minnesota Timberwolves Tuesday. Maybe this will be one of the games they do not take over 30 three-point shots in a game.
The Brooklyn Nets set a franchise record in their first four games this season. Brooklyn shot over 30 three-point shots in each of their first four games. Some nights the shots fell, and on others, they did not. And when they did not, they really did not.
So far, through six games, Brooklyn has shot an average of 30.4 three-point jumpers per game. On average, the Nets have only made 10.5 of those attempts per game. That turns out to be a dismal 30.7 percent from long range.
Halloween night against the Bulls, Brooklyn attempted 31 threes and made only five of them. That is a pitiful 16.1 percent. Against the Hornets a few nights ago, Brooklyn attempted 36 three-pointers. The Nets only made nine of them for another pitiful 25 percent from three.
Both of these games were losses. The Bulls game was an absolute blowout. There is only one person on the entire roster right now that has higher than a 33 percent rating from long range. That one player is Sean Kilpatrick.
Kilpatrick is hitting 41.4 percent of his long range jumpers on the season. The next best shooters, at least allegedly coming into the season, were Bojan Bogdanovic and Joe Harris. Bogdanovic has a 33.3 percent rating, and Harris has hit 30 percent of his threes.
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Brooklyn does not have a Kyle Korver (although we could have years ago) nor do we have a J.J. Reddick or a Stephen Curry. There is no excuse for this team to be firing up all of these long range shots. Coach Atkinson runs a motion offense to move the ball around and find better shots.
In the Nets’ win against Detroit, they only shot 27 long range jumpers and made 13 of them for a 48.1 percent ratio. When you are shooting like that, keep shooting. When you are shooting 16 or 25 percent from range, stop shooting.
If Brooklyn continues to launch long shots, with these shooters, they will lose a lot of games. There is no pure shooter on this team that can hit shots at a consistent rate. Bojan Bogdanovic is the taking a lot of threes, but he has not made a terribly great amount of them. He and Joe Harris are the only ‘shooters’ on this team from range, and they are not hitting their shots.
The only person on this team that can hit threes outside of Sean Kilpatrick right now, it seems, is Brook Lopez. That will not last forever though. Brooklyn needs to move the ball a lot more to get better shots. Better shots equal better shooting percentages. Better shooting percentages equals more points. More points equals more wins.
Brooklyn needs to calm down from behind the arc, or else this will be a long season that may see Vegas’ insulting 20.5 win projection come to fruition. That is something the fans nor the team want to see actually happen.
If they want to avoid that, stop taking so many darn long shots and slash and drive to the basket. Create plays, draw fouls. Play basketball the way it is meant to be played, which means from inside the arc, not outside of it.