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The Nets may be one of the oldest teams in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean they have to be one of the slowest.
As a matter of fact, if the Nets want to win, they probably can’t afford to be.
They’re at their best playing with pace. That point was driven home in Sunday’s rout of Detroit, when they shattered the franchise record by shooting a white-hot 65.2 percent from the floor. It’s a lesson they’d do well to carry over into Wednesday’s tilt against Atlanta, closing out this six-game homestand.
“Overall, we tried to play the right way. We tried to get into actions, we tried to play early and quick, and share the ball and making good decisions,” Steve Nash said. “We turned it over a little bit too much, but I thought we stuck with it and tried to play the right way.”
For the Nets, playing the right way includes being decisive and playing on the front foot, getting into early offense and not getting bogged down facing defenses already set up in the half court. Just because the Hawks are young and athletic doesn’t mean it wouldn’t behoove Brooklyn to get into their sets early.
“[Sometimes] we just walk the ball up, half-court sets,” Bruce Brown told The Post, “when we need to get out into transition, get steals, try to create turnovers. Just get easy ones for us.”
To be clear, that doesn’t necessarily mean becoming the 1980s Showtime Lakers of Magic Johnson, running teams off the court with their fast break. But it does mean that they’re more dangerous when they’re less deliberate.
For perspective, the Nets are shooting .592 in what league stats define as “very early” in the shot clock (18-22 seconds left), but just .273 “very late” (the final four seconds).
“It’s difficult to guard early offense. You’re not looking at a set defense,” Nash said. “It’s pretty common throughout the league, people trying to play quicker. I think when we’re a smaller team with shooters and playmakers, you definitely want to spread the floor, play with pace, make quick decisions. I think that makes us more difficult to guard, so getting to early action helps us.”
The Nets roster’s average age of 27.8 years when they opened the season was the fifth-oldest in the league. And while the Lakers — at a venerable 30.9 years — are capable of walking the ball up and grinding teams into dust in the half court with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Brooklyn simply isn’t built that way.
At their best last season with a Big 3 of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving, the Nets were so potent that they could outscore almost any foe no matter how they chose to do so. But with Irving out indefinitely and Harden still regaining his form, it’s counterproductive to get lulled into a half-court slog.
“[The key is] our pace,” Brown said. “When we’ve had good spurts when we’re playing, the ball’s flying around, everybody’s scoring. We had good pace, we weren’t walking the ball up, we were just getting easy buckets for everyone.
“It’s just our pace. Once we pick up the pace — execute what we need to do on defense, do something with a little more urgency — we’re fine. And then we start scoring, and then we start feeling good. If we start with good pace, we’ll be fine.”
The ability to play with pace has gotten both Brown and Deandre Bembry some playing time, including a second-quarter run in Sunday’s win that helped open that game up.
“[Bembry] plays with pace, he’s an excellent cutter, he’s finishing the ball very well,” Nash said. “Even though he’s not profiled as an offensive player, he brings things to the offensive end with his quickness, athleticism, pace of play.”
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