Nets: Blake Griffin defends Steve Nash’s hesitation in loss vs Bucks

Following their eye-opening loss to Milwaukee last weekend, the Brooklyn Nets needed to respond with a commanding performance in Tuesday night’s rematch.

Despite facing mounting pressure, the Nets were inexcusably out-hustled and dropped their second consecutive game to the Bucks. The result? The Nets lost the season series against Milwaukee, meaning they don’t own the tiebreaker advantage and that could be consequential  once the playoffs come around.

What made this loss so infuriating? Well, for starters, Brooklyn established control heading into the fourth quarter, opening up a six-point lead with just under 10 minutes remaining. From there, you would think Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving would put the team on their back, right?

Wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the Bucks erupted for an 18-1 run to generate a nine-point advantage with 4:40 left in regulation. As expected, head coach Steve Nash received harsh criticism for letting the game flip on its head without calling a timeout.

Nash acknowledged that he probably should’ve stopped the bleeding, but Blake Griffin was actually quick to defend him in his postgame presser. The only downside? Griffin noted that the Nets were “outworked,” essentially admitting this loss was on the players.

Did Steve Nash’s hesitation cost the Nets against Milwaukee?

We obviously wouldn’t expect Griffin to throw Nash under the bus just months after he joined Brooklyn, but it speaks volumes that he blasted his new teammates for a supposed lack of effort. After all, 15 (!) of the Bucks’ 18 points during their extended fourth quarter run came on layups, almost all of which were uncontested.

This isn’t to say Nash should be absolved of blame. Even if he had nothing constructive to say, calling a timeout amid adversity — especially when your team is losing its grip on a nationally-televised game — seems like the first rule of coaching, no?

That brings us to our next point. Could Nash’s hesitation be attributed to his lack of experience? This isn’t the first time this season that his lack of decisiveness in the timeout department has been scrutinized, and the fact it’s remerged right before the playoffs is concerning.

"“We could’ve called a timeout here or there for sure, but there’s also a part of our team that you want to learn to problem-solve,” Nash told reporters. “You want to keep having them attacking. Tonight, maybe I could have called another timeout, but you also want to make sure you save a few for the end of the game.”"

If this was an ordinary regular season game, we wouldn’t fault Nash for letting Brooklyn try to problem-solve their way out of a scoring run. However, this matchup had massive playoff implications and the Nets showed no signs of slowing the Bucks down.

Though Brooklyn’s effort down the stretch was lackluster, it was ultimately the first-year head coach’s indecisiveness that cost them on Tuesday night. As a result, Milwaukee is now just two games behind the Nets for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference.

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