Eight.8 seconds before the end of the game, Kevin Durant made another pass error when he broke through with the ball, and Jason Tatum snatched and dunked to seal the victory for the Celtics.
103-109, the Nets lost game 3 at home, trailing the Celtics 3-0 in the series. At the end of the whistle, Durant's mind exploded and looked at the big screen in confusion, then turned around and walked out with his head down, his frustration was just imaginable.
In three games, the Nets lost 1, 7 and 6 points respectively, and each game seemed to have a chance to win, but in each game they became losers because of one problem or another. Originally, people in the industry generally thought that this round of the series could at least play the sixth game, and the big chance would be to steal seven, but now the Nets are on the verge of being swept out.
Never in NBA history has a team completed a comeback without falling behind 3-0. Faced with an almost impossible task, the Nets could only pin their hopes on a Ben Simmons who hadn't played a second this season. You can imagine how unlikely the Nets are to do a miracle.
The Nets haven't given up yet, but if the Nets want to keep their hopes alive, they'll have to hold on to their next home. To do this, the Nets have to figure out where they lost their first three games and how to solve the problem.
At first glance, the net looks like a smashed window paper, leaking wind everywhere and getting problems everywhere. For example, the Nets' size problem is not solved, and they can't take care of both Tatum and Jaylen Brown on the defensive end, Tatum was not efficient last game, but today scored 39 points, and Jaylen Brown took over the whole game again in the final quarter and scored 23 points. Durant has been defending more in the last two games, but the effect has not been good. The Nets lost another 13 defensive rebounds throughout the game and were repeatedly beaten by opponents as a second offense.
But of all the problems, it was Durant's dud that caused the biggest damage to the Nets. In the first two games, Durant shot 13 of 31, extremely inefficient, with more turnovers than assists.
The Celtics have a number of high-caliber defenders, and coupled with Robert Williams' comeback today, the Celtics' defensive system is back intact. In the first two games, the Celtics locked durant's offense through the sea of people tactics. Whether Durant holds the ball or does not have the ball, the Celtics will complete the switch in the first place (except for Pregart and Theis) and not give Durant a chance to assist his teammates. At the same time, because the Celtics have few defensive weaknesses and are not afraid to change defenses, it is difficult for Durant to form a misplaced offensive opportunity. And when he tried to attack individually, the Celtics immediately let go of Bruce Brown or Drummond and Clarkston to form a two- or three-man siege of Durant.
As a result, Durant had a hard time forming shots under the basket, with only 12 percent of his shots coming from inside the box in the first two games, compared to 36.5 percent in the regular season. Durant's first two games were of extremely low quality shooting, with an expected effective shooting percentage of just 36.5 percent. The actual effective shooting rate of Durant in normal form is indeed much higher than his expected effective shooting rate, but in this round of the series, the Celtics' defense has turned Durant into an abnormal version of Durant, and he has even encountered 5 blocks in his first two games, and only 2% of his shots outside the box in the regular season have been blocked, but the first two games have reached 9%. Durant made a lot of mistakes, and when he got into the circle he conceded a lot of balls and passed mistakes.
Before the third game, there was a lot of discussion in the US media about how Durant should adjust himself and how Nash should make tactical adjustments. ESPN expert Perton believes that when the Celtics send Derrick White and Pret Richard, Durant should attack these two points more. The Scout interviewed by "The Athletic" believes that Nash should give Durant better chances to catch the ball and shoot.
Today, however, the Nets have not made significant adjustments. Nash seemed to be just waiting for the referee to change the scale of the blowdown to reduce the intensity of the Celtics' defensive confrontation, except for the use of Blake Griffin when many of the team were in foul trouble, Nash did not make any adjustments, and Durant did not get offload on the offensive end.
Durant played 46 minutes in the game but only shot 11 times, his efficiency is good, but the output of 16 points and 8 assists is far from his normal level, not to mention he has 5 turnovers. Such a Durant can not change the Celtics' defensive formation, force the Celtics to make adjustments, and he cannot carry the Nets' offensive burden. In the fourth quarter, Durant had only 1 shot, and he and Irving combined only had 5 shots.
In theory, Durant alone can attract the attention of at least three defenders, the Nets have a good ball-handling attacker like Irving, and Dragic sitting on the bench, the Nets can completely let Durant stand on the strong side to contain the defense, and the others attack from the weak side. But Nash's Nets are filled with too many singles and lack of ball transfers, which has also been spat upon by professional scouts. Today, Irving shot 6-of-17, including only 16 points on 0-of-7 three-pointers, and Dragic only had 9 minutes to play, and their role in holding the ball was not reflected.
In this case, the Celtics are not afraid of Bruce Brown, Clarkston, Mills, Griffin, these odd soldiers, because even if Bruce Brown scores 26 points, Mills contributes 12 points, Clarkston scores 13 points, and Griffin hits two three-pointers, they can't do much damage to the Celtic defense, they are just the end point, and those piecemeal cannon fire on the Celtic copper wall can not cause substantial damage.
After losing three games in a row, what adjustments can the Nets make? Nash spent three games without finding a way to free Durant, and it's unrealistic to expect him to find a way to do it in the next game. The Nets can only count on Simmons' next comeback now.
The theoretical value of Simmons has been read many times before. If Simmons can play, even if he only plays 15-20 minutes per game, he can also go to Tatum and use his height of 2 meters 11 to interfere with Tatum's shooting and reduce his efficiency as much as possible, which can share a lot of pressure on Durant. Durant could either take over the defense against Jaylen Brown, or he could defend against the Celtics' relatively weak scorers and free up more energy to participate in the defense. Simmons can also help the Nets protect rebounds in the backcourt, instigating counterattacks and giving the Nets more opportunities to score easily.
However, after Simmons returned, the Nets also had to face some problems. For example, on the offensive end, the Celtics will definitely let go of Simmons and focus their defensive energy on the defense of Durant and Irving, which will affect the playing time of Bruce Brown and Clarkston on the one hand, and on the other hand, it will not help much to alleviate the defensive pressure that Durant and Irving face in the position battle. In addition, Simmons has not fought for a long time, and his state after his comeback is unknown.
The Nets have so much work to do to win game four, and their fault tolerance is extremely low. Nash had to come up with a change of move, Durant and Irving had to show normal levels of performance, the role players had to blossom a little more, and Simmons had to play a role. If there is a problem with any link, the nets may wait for the end of being swept away.