Brooklyn Nets: Kenny Atkinson's playoff report card: D-

The Brooklyn Nets will have to steal another win at Philadelphia, but their cause hasn’t been helped by some of the moves by coach Kenny Atkinson.

After losing Game 3 at Barclays Center, the Brooklyn Nets now need to win three of their four remaining playoff games and steal at least one more game in Philadelphia.

Their season is likely over but this predicament could have been avoided if coach Kenny Atkinson planned better and pushed the right buttons.

Atkinson’s defensive game plan

The Nets have struggled mightily on defense against the 76ers in this series. The disturbing aspect of this is Brooklyn has the personnel to successfully defend the 76ers. Brooklyn has five players that are at least 6-foot-6, athletic, young and agile.

However, Atkinson seems unable to utilize this advantage or make any adjustments whatsoever. To contain the 76er perimeter threat Atkinson should be switching screens and contesting shooters like J.J. Redick, Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler.

He should not be using any zones at all since zones leave a team vulnerable to offensive rebounds. Yet he continues to use zones and consequently, the Nets are giving up more second-chance points than they should.

It’s a given that the 76ers are bigger and hard to rebound against. However, by switching screens and keeping defenders’ hands in passing lanes the Nets can tip passes and create turnovers. This strategy won’t work every possession, but it’s a better defensive strategy than the current one.

One way to reduce second-chance opportunities is to create turnovers before the first shot is even attempted. This subtly is lost on Atkinson. This strategy would be disruptive to the 76ers’ offensive flow as well.

Another strategy the Nets should use going forward is to front the post if Joel Embiid decides to post up. Help can come from the weak side and create more turnovers so long as the helper doesn’t leave Redick or Tobias Harris open for 3s.

This scheme would give Brooklyn much better box-out position, which would help Brooklyn secure more rebounds.

Another gaping flaw in Atkinson’s defense is how he is electing to defend Ben Simmons. Sagging off of him is only effective if Simmons takes the bait and chooses to shoot, which he obviously isn’t doing.

An adjustment must be made. Atkinson cannot simply allow Simmons to barrel down the lane for easy layups and short shots. Simmons excels at this. If Atkinson was switching screens he could elect to just play Simmons soft instead of using the extreme-sag strategy.

The defenders should always stay in front of Simmons and keep a hand in his face to obscure his court vision and keep him out of the paint at all costs. This would make his passes less accurate and clog his driving lanes.

Another option would be to use a stalwart defender like Rondae Hollis-Jefferson to pick Simmons up full court and use a soft man press. This would disrupt the 76er offense and confuse Simmons since he is not accustomed to this type of pressure.

Once Simmons crosses half-court you can either trap him in a corner or just play him softly. At the very least this would force Simmons to expend a lot of energy just trying to advance the ball. It would also disrupt the timing of the 76er screens run for Redick.

Atkinson simply can’t persist in using the extreme Simmons-sag on every possession. Simmons has seen this and adjusted his game accordingly. A counter and variance option is necessary.

Problems in offensive game plan and in-game adjustments

With Embiid out for Game 3 one would expect the Nets to relentlessly attack the paint. Instead they attempted a whopping 39 3-pointers — only making eight for a paltry 20.5 percent.

Boban Marjanovic is a decent rim protector, but a relentless attack on the rim would have likely put him in early foul trouble and got the Nets into the bonus where they could get easy points at the charity stripe.

While Marjanovic did eventually foul out, he already did his damage putting up a respectable 14 points and eight rebounds. While 3-point shooting is an advantage for the Nets, Atkinson’s failure to be selective with this shot selection really hurt the Nets.

Taking 39 3-pointers should not have been the plan in this game.

Another problem was Atkinson only played Jarrett Allen 21 minutes. Allen should have played 35-plus minutes as this was a must win game for Brooklyn; especially considering that Ed Davis was injured early and ruled out for most of the game.

With Marjanovic in foul trouble, Embiid unavailable and the Nets struggling to secure rebounds, it boggles the mind how Atkinson played his best rim protector and rebounder only 21 minutes. Allen was not injured and he’s young, so fatigue was not a factor.

Also note in those 21 minutes Allen racked up 15 points and six rebounds in a highly efficient performance. He could have had a monster game, but we will never know since Atkinson elected not to play him more.

Atkinson’s choice to not to keep Allen on the floor was not his only minutes distribution error. Once again, he did not start Caris LeVert, who has been nothing short of sensational all series long.

He is also the Nets’ best two-way player, so considering the Nets have major issues stopping the 76ers on defense it makes no sense why he would not start LeVert. He only played 27 minutes in Game 3. This is unforgiveable as he was on fire all game long.

In just 27 minutes LeVert finished with 26 points, seven rebounds, two steals and a block on 10-for-17 shooting and made three 3s. Atkinson needed to play him 35-plus minutes, but he didn’t.

Aside from the minutes he didn’t allocate to the players he should have, Atkinson compounded these mistakes by allocating minutes to players he shouldn’t have (Treveon Graham, 12 minutes). He played Jared Dudley close to 17 minutes and those were a brutal 17 minutes to watch.

Dudley finished the game with no points and two turnovers. Dudley’s performance was uglier than the box score indicates. He was mismatched all game long guarding players that were either too big for him or too fast for him. He even shot an air ball in the third quarter.

Dudley may be a glue guy in the locker room and a good teammate in practice, but this is the NBA Playoffs. Your performance has to do the talking.

DeMarre Carroll also played too many minutes (28) and was ineffective on defense. Atkinson should have shortened his bench and re-allocated these minutes to ensure that LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie, D’Angelo Russell, and Allen all played 35-plus minutes. What is he saving them for?

He also should have had Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ahead of Graham, Dudley and Rodions Kurucs in the rotation as RHJ is the emotional leader of this team, an elite defender and despite his lack of range he is a somewhat competent player on offense.

Atkinson would have been wise to use Shabazz Napier as well so Russell could play shooting guard in spurts. Napier would provide ball handling relief for D-Lo and be a true facilitator on the floor to compliment shooters like Harris.

Kurucs should not be starting. Not only did Kurucs start the game, but he played 19 minutes. Kurucs has potential, but this is not the time to explore it.

Atkinson should know better. Kurucs has not shown he can shoot consistently yet and is far too inexperienced at age 21 to be starting an NBA playoff game. You could even argue that he should not be in the playoff rotation at all, yet he started all three playoff games.

Another devastating flaw in Atkinson’s game plan was the lack of ball movement. The Nets finished the game with only 12 total team assists. This is inexcusable and not a result of the 76ers playing good defense.

This could be an indictment on Russell’s playmaking ability. but I think it has more to do with poor offensive game planning compounded by the fact that Napier didn’t log a single second until the lead was insurmountable.

Napier is arguably the Nets’ only true point guard. During the regular season when he got regular minutes he showed he can be a good facilitator and even score when necessary.

Russell is the Nets’ best scoring option, but he can’t be both a facilitator and a scoring machine at the same time. That being said, Russell didn’t even log 30 minutes in Game 3 and he was not in foul trouble. This all points back to Atkinson’s folly no matter how you look at it.

The best players need to be on the floor as much as possible in the playoffs, period.

It was foolish to have Joe Harris guard Redick and expect Harris to also be the typical dead-eye shooter he is at home. Additionally, when it was clear Harris was cold Atkinson should have subbed him out for LeVert much sooner, but he didn’t.

For Harris to be effective on offense the Nets needed to penetrate and kick then swing the ball to him for open shots, but this never happened. Too often the Nets penetrated and settled for floaters, mid range shots or contested 3s.

We did not see the trademark plays of Harris moving off screens and rolling to the rim for layups or getting uncontested shots like we did all season.

Atkinson just seems lost when it comes to coaching high stakes games. The strategy of using a 10-man rotation can win you regular season games, but most coaches tend to shorten their bench in playoff games, especially if their top eight or nine players are young, which the Nets all are.

Atkinson also seems to not have a pulse of his players’ biorhythms. He leaves cold players in too long and takes hot players out too fast. His starting lineups are highly questionable. His game planning and in-game adjustments leave much to be desired.

Atkinson may have worn out his welcome in Brooklyn. To his credit he has played a role in helping to develop young players.

He’s also handled losing extremely well given the circumstances Billy King put this franchise in five years ago, but now it’s time for the Brooklyn Nets to get a better strategic coach.

The days of accepting losing are over and the future is too bright to leave Atkinson in control at the helm in Brooklyn for much longer.

Some might say the Nets overachieved and Atkinson has done a fine job, but that is just lowering the standards for what it means to be a good coach. I don’t think the Nets overachieved. I think they were just underrated.

General manager Sean Marks built this roster in such a way they would be relatively successful no matter what buttons Atkinson pushed in the regular season. This masked many errors Atkinson made.

The playoffs are a different matter, though, and Atkinson’s shortcomings have been thoroughly exposed. Philadelphia coach Brett Brown isn’t exactly a chess master when it comes to coaching, but he is out-coaching Atkinson.

This is a good litmus test for Atkinson’s true level of coaching competency or apparent lack thereof.

Next. Mock Draft: Nets look for size, shooting. dark

I’ve seen enough of Atkinson to know he doesn’t have what it takes to lead Brooklyn to an Eastern Conference title within the next five years; which is a reasonable goal with Marks as GM, salary cap flexibility and draft picks in Brooklyn’s future.

Brooklyn Nets: Kenny Atkinson’s playoff report card: D-

By Evan Decruz | Apr 20, 2019

The Brooklyn Nets will have to steal another win at Philadelphia, but their cause hasn’t been helped by some of the moves by coach Kenny Atkinson.

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Atkinson’s defensive game plan

Problems in offensive game plan and in-game adjustments