Rondae Hollis-Jefferson made his first start of the season at the 4 and just his second overall and responded with a solid effort.
He shot the ball well, which had not been the case of late, as RHJ entered Sunday’s game hitting just 35.7 percent over his last four games.
He also defended well, both against Ben Simmons early and his coverage on Jimmy Butler on the game-winning 3-pointer was as good as it could have possibly been. He stayed with Butler, anticipated the step back, challenged the shot well. Sometimes guys just make shots.
He did have a critical turnover down the stretch, where he had one of his still too-frequent moments where he panicked with the ball in traffic and simply threw it away.
But he gave the starting unit a boost at the 4 they haven’t had for awhile with the diminishing returns of Jared Dudley.
Joe Harris didn’t have the touch from distance Sunday night, but the one 3-pointer he canned was potentially huge — it put the Nets back in front after the 76ers had taken the lead in the closing moments.
An underrated aspect of Harris’ game is how solid he is defensively.
He’s never going to be an All-Defensive type with loads of steals or blocks, but he works hard at that end, knows where to be on help side coverage more often than not and if you’re going to score on him, you’re going to have to work for it.
But when he’s not knocking down shots, his value is nonetheless diminished.