Brooklyn Nets: Game 4 controversies loom large looking ahead to Game 5

3. Nets need Russell facilitating more

The raw scoring numbers for D’Angelo Russell don’t look bad in the Brooklyn Nets’ first-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The All-Star point guard is averaging 22.3 points per game through the first four games of the series, after all.

But he’s taken 86 shots to score his 89 points thus far, making just 39.5 percent overall and shooting 35.5 percent on 7.8 3-point tries per game.

Beyond that, however, is the fact that Russell isn’t doing nearly as much to set up teammates for scores as he did during the regular season.

Russell averaged 7.0 assists and 3.1 turnovers per game during the regular season, an adequate 2.22:1 assist-to-turnover ration.

But in the series against the 76ers, Russell has just 15 assists and 13 turnovers through the first four games, a ratio of just 1.15:1. That would be a less-than-optimal ratio for a frontcourt player, much less your starting point guard.

As a team, Brooklyn has just 70 assists and 56 turnovers, a 1.25:1 assist-to-turnover ratio and has an assist percentage of just 44.9 with 70 assists on 156 made field goals.

That could be a big reason why the Nets are shooting 42.9 percent overall and 33.1 percent from 3-point range in the series.

Those numbers compare to a 1.58:1 AST/TO ratio during the regular season on shooting of 44.9 percent overall and 35.3 percent from deep.

That all starts with Russell, who has the ball in his hands more than any other Net, and is praised often by coach Kenny Atkinson for his elite passing ability.

It’s not helping matters that backup point guard Spencer Dinwiddie is averaging just one assist per game in the series with seven turnovers, a dreadfully bad ratio for a point guard of 0.57:1.

Caris LeVert is second on the team with 11 assists in four games … the same total as center Jarrett Allen.

The Nets came into the series knowing an advantage they could exploit was Philadelphia’s difficulty with stopping guards off the pick-and-roll and in isolation, but by carrying that to the degree they have, two things have happened.

The first is that the 76ers, with time to prepare specifically for what Brooklyn is doing, have adjusted and are covering much better than they did in their Game 1 loss.

The other is that the ball is just not moving on the offensive end for the Nets. It got better in Game 4, when the Nets had 23 assists on 36 makes — an assist percentage of 63.9.

That is a vast improvement from Game 1’s 39.5 percent (15 dimes on 38 makes), 46.5 percent (20 assists on 43 makes) in Game 2 and a woeful 30.8 percent (12 assists on 39 makes) in Game 3.

If Brooklyn can get opposing defenses scrambling because the ball is popping, it gives them so many more options than if the ball is being dribbled into submission while attempting to find an isolation matchup.

Exploiting an advantage is fundamental. Beating it to death until the offense grinds to a virtual standstill, on the other hand, is not.