CHARLOTTE, N.C. — As soon as the Nets put their energy into fixing their defense, now their offense is broken.
Their malaise isn’t just a case of missing shots, but picking the wrong ones. They haven’t made the extra pass, haven’t trusted their teammates and haven’t been able to buy a basket when they need one.
Near the NBA cellar in most defensive statistics, they rank a solid 16th in scoring at 105.1 points per game. But in the last four games, they’ve been dead-last at 94.5 points a contest.
“There’s times when we move the ball well and it completely changes the game for us,’’ Brook Lopez said. “It’s just a matter of offensively trusting in one another; and it starts at the top with me. … But we all can agree that each and every one of us could do better when it comes to that.
“It’s tough. We have a lot of young guys, a lot of guys who haven’t had a lot of experience in the league, and that’s why the thing that really separate the great players, great teams, in this league is just coming out every night and performing at the same level. And again, I’ve got to do better at that. I’ve been guilty of that. And I think we agree we can be better when it comes to that.”
The Nets have to agree before they can fix it. Too often they fail to make the extra pass, or force the issue in heavy traffic. That’s why their shooting percentage within three feet of the basket is fourth-worst in the NBA, according to BasketballReference.com.
“Sometimes we find ourselves a little too aggressive,’’ Trevor Booker said. “We might get up in the air and try to make a play and then turn the ball over.”
The poor decisions have come in every form. In Sunday’s loss to Toronto, they were down 38-36 when Lopez committed a pair of offensive fouls in just over a minute and went to the bench with three personals. Sean Kilpatrick hit a 3, but the Raptors promptly went on a 17-2 run with Lopez sitting.
“That hurt us, no doubt about it. But I’d ask Brook: Offensive fouls are turnovers. So he’s a part of it. So he’s got to do a better job. We need him in the game,’’ coach Kenny Atkinson said. “One was driving into the crowd. Is there a better play, is there a better option? That’s where we’ve got to get to. We’re not there, and quite honestly we’ve got a long way to go to improve.”
Their offensive downturn coincided with Atkinson shifting the focus during practice and shootaround to fixing their leaky defense four games ago.
“We’re going to keep hammering it,’’ Atkinson said. “We’re going to keep hammering, executing better on the offensive end, making better decisions, taking better shots.”
They’re the NBA’s worst team, 9-42 going into Tuesday’s game against the Hornets, yet the Nets’ offense has been a relative
strength.
“Offensively we’ve got to play better together. If we play together and make better decisions shot-making, we’ll do a better job. That’s one of the reasons why our turnovers are the way they are,’’ Kilpatrick said.
“It’s something we have to work on. It’s been habit. We have these stretches of three, four minutes and we turn over the ball and it makes them get easy baskets. So we go from being up four, down four, to being down 14,’’ said Justin Hamilton. “Sometimes it’s a mental thing where someone comes in the game not ready to go. But sometimes it’s just bad luck, the ball bounces weird. It’s just having the mental toughness and be able to go through that adversity.”
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