A team that needs extra practice might also be a team in the biggest need of a breather to heal bodies and psyches. Do you put your hand on a struggling player’s shoulder, or your foot in his behind?
These are the questions facing the Nets, with the NBA’s worst record (9-47) and longest losing skid after Wednesday’s 129-125 loss to the Bucks in their final contest before the All-Star break. And rookie head coach Kenny Atkinson is ultimately the man who will have to answer them.
“We don’t believe in three-hour practices,’’ Atkinson said. “Some of my staff say, ‘We should practice three hours, coach, with what we need to work on.’ Then the performance team looks at me and says we should go 10 minutes today because we need these guys’ legs. It’s great. It’s great discussions we have, great debates we have, and then we make the decision.”
The assistants want to drill the players on this fundamental or that action, and the performance team — brought in by general manager Sean Marks in large part for “prehab” to avoid injuries — wants to keep those players fresh and healthy.
“It’s a collaborative effort,’’ Atkinson said. “When Sean and I came on board … one of the things we talked about was an inclusive culture. When we make a decision on what type of practice we’re going to have, whether we’re going to have shootaround or not, how long we’re going to go, how hard we’re going to go, it’s an involved analytical discussion on those things.”
One of the reasons Marks invested so heavily in the performance team (the Nets have one of the biggest front offices in the entire league) was to help prevent injuries. Unfortunately, point guard Jeremy Lin — the one player they couldn’t afford to lose — missed his 44th game Wednesday with a left hamstring injury.
As the losses piled up and the season became a drudgery, the Nets canceled more shootarounds and previously scheduled practices over the past few weeks. They canceled shootarounds on Jan. 25, Feb. 3, Monday and Wednesday. They scratched practice on Jan. 26 and Feb. 6, all in trying to keep their players fresh.
There was input from a host of directions, but it all stopped on Atkinson’s desk.
“Ultimately, I make the call. It’s one of the hardest parts of the job,’’ Atkinson said. “At the end of the day, you want your guys to be fresh when the game starts, but on the other hand, you know you have 28 things you need to work on. So we’re constantly, constantly talking about it, analyzing it again and again.”
Practice time is limited. Atkinson has talked before about the schedule not affording enough time to practice everything he wants, and admitted he and his staff have to find a way to balance their work on offense and defense so that their performances aren’t so one-sided.
After getting shredded by 20 points at Minnesota on Jan. 28, they have focused lately on defense and have seen their scoring defense vault from dead-last to 13th and their field-goal defense climb from 25th to fourth-best over their previous eight games. But in that same span, their scoring offense — 16th going into Wednesday — had been next-to-last.
“I personally said after the Timberwolves game we really need to move toward the defensive end, and I’m glad we did it,” Atkinson said. “But again I think this is part of the learning curve for a new coach, is you also have got to find that balance. “We’re getting back to doing more offensive things, more offensive breakdowns, but also including defensive segments in our practices.”
Finding that balance — and managing those practice minutes — will go a long way toward determining Atkinson’s growth as a coach and the Nets’ improvement in the second half.
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