Lichtenstein: Nets Getting Exposed At Point Guard In Lin's Absence

By Steve Lichtenstein
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In an iconic line from the movie "Airplane!," the control tower supervisor played by Lloyd Bridges, when confronted with an impending disaster, quipped, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

Though he was facing a situation that was far from anything quite so comical, Nets coach Kenny Atkinson might have had a similar reaction a week ago when he looked ahead at his club's schedule: It was the wrong week for the Nets to play without a pilot at point guard.

With starter Jeremy Lin still not cleared from the strained hamstring he incurred during a victory over Detroit on Nov. 2, the Nets crashed back to Earth following a promising 4-5 start.

 Brooklyn's 129-109 loss at the hands of visiting Portland on Sunday was its fourth consecutive defeat. During their slide, the Nets have lost by an average of 19.5 points and have surrendered at least 124 points in each game.

"We're plugging holes right now defensively, leaking in different places" Atkinson said. "I keep talking about slippage -- we've slipped, and it's part of the NBA. We've got to regroup and look at it and try to find areas we can help our guys."

When Atkinson digs through the wreckage, the black box will show that the mismatches at the point guard position were the proximate cause of Brooklyn's doom.

Portland's Damian Lillard (and off guard C.J. McCollum when Lillard sat) was the latest in an impressive line of opposing lead guards to destroy the Nets' decimated backcourt.

Lillard and McCollum combined to score 51 points on 20-of-33 shooting from the floor on Sunday. Not too much different from how the Clippers' Chris Paul (21 points, 8-for-11), the Lakers D'Angelo Russell (32 points, 11-for-20), and the Thunder's Russell Westbrook (30 points, 13-for-21) previously toyed with Brooklyn's lame perimeter defense.

Without Lin, the Nets' lack of depth at the position has been exposed. Atkinson had Rondae Hollis-Jefferson attempt to tackle Paul and Westbrook, an impossible task for the second-year wing. If only, like in "Airplane!," the Nets could have found a Ted Striker available as an emergency backup plan at point guard to right the course.

Alas, veteran Greivis Vasquez, who was signed to a one-year, $4.3 million contract over the summer, never fully recovered from an ankle injury that has plagued him since last season and was waived. Randy Foye was also added in free agency, but the 33-year old has little juice in his legs to stay with all of the league's elite guards or provide much of a threat offensively. Yogi Ferrell, an undersized and undrafted rookie free agent, was promoted from the Nets' D-League affiliate prior to Brooklyn's recently concluded five-game road trip.

Atkinson tried starting Sean Kilpatrick out of position at the point for several games, but opponents quickly figured out that Kilpatrick did not possess the requisite ball-handling skills. Turnover-fests ensued.

Against the Blazers, Atkinson gave Brooklyn native Isaiah Whitehead his third NBA start. The second-round pick out of Seton Hall was acquired by the Nets in a draft day trade with Utah. The consensus expectation for Whitehead this season was that most of his Barclays Center court time would be in a Long Island Nets D-League uniform.

Instead, Whitehead has been receiving major league training by fire.

To be fair, Whitehead at least looked like he belonged in the same arena as Lillard, who made a series of high-degree-of-difficulty shots to get the Blazers' offense rolling early.

"We were just talking in the coaches' meeting, I thought Isaiah really competed and he's really getting into guys," Atkinson said. "This is the NBA -- sometimes you play good defense and the ball goes in."

MORE: Lichtenstein: Young Lakers Show Nets What Might Have Been

Whitehead, who said he asked Lillard questions about various aspects of the NBA game during free-throw attempts, impressed the Blazers' All-Star in the 16 minutes they shared the court.

"He's a young point guard -- really strong and competitive," said Lillard, who headlined an event at Whitehead's alma mater, Lincoln High School, on Saturday where he provided new uniforms and shoes for the boys' and girls' varsity teams. "He's getting an opportunity to play at the highest level."

Unfortunately, Whitehead's defense is way ahead of his offense at this stage. He's shooting 35 percent from the floor and just 22 percent (7-for-32) outside the restricted area.

Starting Whitehead adds to Atkinson's catch-22 when it comes to his fan-friendly pace-and-space schemes. Whitehead and Atkinson's other top defensive players (Trevor Booker and Hollis-Jefferson) do not provide the perimeter shooting that limits stagnation in his motion offense. On the other hand, the Nets' better 3-point shooters -- Kilpatrick, Joe Harris, Justin Hamilton, and Bojan Bogdanovic -- just aren't good enough on most nights to overcome their enormous defensive liabilities.

However, the advanced metrics -- albeit in a small sample size -- suggest that prioritizing defense will produce better outcomes for Brooklyn. The trio of Whitehead, Booker and Hollis-Jefferson has outscored the opposition by 7.1 points per 100 possessions in its 42 total minutes together this season, according to NBA.com.

Given the sad state (third from the bottom with 108 points allowed per 100 possessions) that is the Nets defense, maybe Atkinson should give them a longer look until Lin returns.

That would require Atkinson to adjust his substitution patterns, especially in third quarters, where the Nets own the second-worst net rating (minus-24.8 points per 100 possessions) in the league.

Against Portland, Booker was removed 4:38 into the third quarter. Whitehead and Hollis-Jefferson exited a little over a minute later. A 10-point game ballooned to 19 points in the blink of an eye.

Foye and Kilpatrick had horrendous matinee performances, going a combined 2-for-15 from the floor. Kilpatrick, in particular, looks like the point guard dalliances cost him all the confidence that helped him to an early season lead in the league's bench scoring category.

I know that there's little chance that Atkinson will deviate from the organizational plan of spreading the playing time around the roster. He's going to give some opportunities to young players like Whitehead and Ferrell, and he's also going to get his allegedly good-guy veterans, Foye and Luis Scola, minutes as well.

The Nets will continue to play at a fast pace (they are ranked second in the league behind Phoenix at 104.5 possessions per game), while launching a ton of 3-pointers (second with 34.3 attempts per game), even though they don't knock them down at a high rate (25th in 3-point shooting percentage at 32.5 percent).

As a result, the fun that accompanied the Nets' surprising competitiveness out of the gate is slowly moving further away in the rearview mirror as the season has progressed. When asked before Sunday's game, Atkinson did not give any further insight into Lin's return date, which most likely means that the Nets will still be point-less for most of the game when Boston visits Barclays Center on Wednesday.

When Atkinson convenes his troops for his pregame pep talk, he may want to channel Julie Hagerty's character in "Airplane!"

"By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to play point guard?"

For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Jets and the NHL, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1