Evaluating conservative defense of Brooklyn Nets

The Brooklyn Nets have had a bit off a slow start to the 2019-20 season. Is the team’s conservative pick-and-roll defense a strength or a weakness?

Casual Brooklyn Nets fans likely have three general observations about the team thus far: 1) a lot of close games, 2) strong offense and 3) poor defense.

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While all three observations are in a sense true, the team’s high pace of play (third fastest) is likely making the offense look a bit better and the defense a bit worse than they both actually have been (due to the resulting high-scoring games).

Even adjusting for pace, however, Brooklyn’s defense has definitely been the weaker end of the floor. Per NBA.com, the Nets are currently ranked seventh offensively and 19th defensively.

There are a multitude of factors that go into defensive performance, but if there’s one thing that jumps out statistically thus far, it’s this: the Nets were dead last in forcing turnovers until the New Orleans Pelicans coughed the ball up 21 times on Monday night to move them up to 27th. They were 22nd last season.

All else equal, forcing turnovers is obviously preferable, but ranking near the bottom isn’t necessarily an indictment of Brooklyn’s defensive schemes. Some teams simply employ more conservative defensive strategies that result in less turnover generation and these teams can still be strong defensively.

Brooklyn seems to be one of these “conservative” defensive teams, and its pick-and-roll defense is a reflection of this. It’s worth exploring this approach, along with its pros and cons.