Brooklyn Nets: 5 takeaways from down-to-wire win at Denver

2. Russell doing the work at the defensive end

In the early stages of his career, D’Angelo Russell has had playing time taken away from him because of his sometimes-lackluster effort on the defensive end of the floor.

No one has ever questioned his offensive ability — even as his consistency wavered at times — but he was a player who sometimes seemed unwilling to really put in the work defensively.

Russell is doing some work of late and that effort is making a big difference for the Brooklyn Nets.

On Friday, Russell was again extremely active on defense, getting a couple of steals by being in the right spot to jump a passing lane without over-committing, and he did good work on the defensive glass.

Jamal Murray was held to a 5-for-14 night shooting — he’s two games removed from a 48-point explosion against the Boston Celtics, remember — and a lot of the credit for that goes to Russell making sure he was in the right place.

Murray did get going a bit in the second half, scoring 12 of his 16 points, but he was still just 3-for-8 from the floor in the process.

Russell had a solid night offensively, as well, with a team-high 23 points on 7-of-14 shooting to go with five assists and only two turnovers. Russell had 22 turnovers through Brooklyn’s first seven games, an average of 3.1 a game.

In his last five games, he has just six and Brooklyn is 4-1 over that span.

Much like the rest of the team, Russell is playing much more under control and isn’t quite as focused on making a highlight-reel pass so much as he is on making a good one.

But even better, Russell is working on the defensive end and contributing to wins even when his shot isn’t on the mark. It seems he’s turned a significant mental corner of late.