Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle don\u2019t have to put the ball in the basket to make the Nets\u2019 offense more dangerous. For a team eager to push the pace, the first step toward easy points often comes at the other end of the floor, with a defensive rebound. It\u2019s a simple game, really.<\/p>\n
Porter pulled down seven rebounds in Brooklyn\u2019s season-opening loss to the Charlotte Hornets, trailing only Randle and Day\u2019Ron Sharpe, who grabbed eight apiece. A respectable showing on the stat sheet, but Porter wasn\u2019t satisfied. He could still picture the rebounds he should\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had seven rebounds. I need to be closer to the 10-rebound range,\u201d Porter said. \u201cI think I can really help the team in that area. There were some rebounds I missed as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlotte made Brooklyn pay for its failure to finish the job on defense. The Hornets crashed their way to 15 offensive rebounds and a 20-8 advantage in second-chance points, a costly difference in their 110-103 victory.<\/p>\n
One fourth-quarter sequence was particularly painful. Ryan Kalkbrenner and Naz Reid each chased down an offensive rebound after a missed 3-pointer, giving Charlotte three cracks at the basket. Reid made sure the third one counted, cleaning up the mess with a putback.<\/p>\n
Porter and Randle accounted for 14 of Brooklyn\u2019s 27 defensive rebounds against the undermanned Hornets, already doing more than half the heavy lifting. But Porter wasn\u2019t looking for someone else to pick up the slack. He wanted an even bigger share of the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as being a good rebounding team, I know a lot of that is on me. A lot of it\u2019s on Julius. It\u2019s not all on Day\u2019Ron,\u201d Porter said.<\/p>\n
As Brooklyn navigates its first season without Nic Claxton, Porter has stressed the importance of recognizing when a teammate needs an extra hand. Sharpe offered a more concrete example of what that looks like, and where the Nets fell short against Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Challenging a shot on the perimeter was only half the battle. Sharpe still had to get back inside and help a teammate fighting for position under the basket. By his own admission, there were times he didn\u2019t make that second effort.<\/p>\n
Charlotte missed 33 of its 48 attempts from beyond the arc, sending plenty of rebounds bouncing into open space. Sharpe pointed to the importance of hunting down those loose balls rather than getting a head start in transition or watching from the 3-point line.<\/p>\n
And the responsibility doesn\u2019t end with the players closest to the basket. Players whose opponents aren\u2019t chasing the rebound still have a job to do. Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez wants bodies on opponents, teammates helping with box-outs and nobody left to wrestle for a rebound on an island.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your man doesn\u2019t crash, you can go sandwich and help,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said after the opener. \u201cIt\u2019s all these things that we\u2019ve worked on that obviously we didn\u2019t execute, but I don\u2019t think it was a matter of effort. Our guys played hard. They tried their best.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Porter and Randle, making an impact on the glass doesn\u2019t always require coming away with the ball. Sometimes, simply putting a body on an opponent and clearing a path for Sharpe or another teammate is enough.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez found plenty to like about Brooklyn\u2019s defensive effort in the opener, particularly its ball pressure and ability to limit attempts at the rim and trips to the free-throw line. But all that good work loses some of its value when the other team gets another crack. Securing the rebound is what turns a strong defensive stand into a stop.<\/p>\n
And Charlotte\u2019s second chances came with a double penalty. Not only did the Nets have to defend all over again, but they also lost opportunities to race up the floor against a defense that hadn\u2019t yet gotten its feet set.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to run if you don\u2019t rebound at all,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n
Randle, for his part, wasn\u2019t waiting for someone else to initiate the contact. He made it his responsibility to put a body on someone first.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to impose our physicality on those things and hit people first,\u201d Randle said. \u201cSo, I\u2019ll set a tone with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle don\u2019t have to put the ball in the basket to make the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,17661,4600,4475,9,24,63,22811,139814],"class_list":["post-381666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-julius-randle","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-offense","tag-rebounding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}