No player on the Nets roster has stepped up more in the aftermath of the James Harden trade than utility playmaker Bruce Brown.
Brown has scored in double digits in all but two of the Nets’ 13 games since the Feb. 10 trade deadline. He is averaging a hair under 14 points on 53.5% shooting from the field and a much-improved 44.4% from three-point range to go with just under six rebounds, three assists and two steals per game since the midseason blockbuster deal.
But that wasn’t the case to start the season.
Brown averaged just six points per game through the first 46 games of the regular season. He was shooting below 30% from downtown and his rebounds, assists and steals were all down. In short: Brown did not look like the player who turned heads with his versatility for the Nets when he enjoyed a breakout season last year.
“Early in the season it was all mental for me,” Brown said after the Nets beat the Knicks in front of Kyrie Irving on Sunday. “I was trying to fit in the role that I had last year and it wasn’t working. So I got kind of frustrated and that’s when I kind of got out of the rotation.”
That’s when the third-year guard sought advice from one of the Nets’ assistant coaches.
“I was like, ‘Bruh, I want to get better,” Brown recalled telling Royal ‘Smoke’ Ivey. “So we got to work on something different.”
Working with Coach Smoke, Brown said, was the turning point for his season. The Nets had utilized Brown, who comes with an unorthodox skill set as a 6-4 guard with rebounding and loose ball recovery prowess, as a small big in the pick and roll. Last season, the Nets used him as a lite version of Draymond Green: Brown would set a screen, roll to the rim, receive a pass and either shoot a floater over the top of the defense or dish a pass to the corner shooter.
Earlier this season, however, the Nets didn’t have a roster constructed well enough to support Brown’s skill set. Last season, he played with Jeff Green and Joe Harris, two shooters who spaced the floor and allowed Brown to operate in the short roll.
This season, Harris suffered what turned out to be a season-ending ankle injury in mid-November, Green signed with the Denver Nuggets and the Paul Millsap experiment failed. The Nets then flanked Brown with players who share a similar profile: slashers James Johnson and DeAndre’ Bembry.
“I just think teams scouted it and we have less shooters than we did last year,” he said. “I mean last year was Jeff, Joe, and when Joe went down, sometimes I was playing with [Johnson] and [Bembry], and they’re slashers like I am.
“So the big would come early, and I’d try the floater, but I’d shoot an airball.”
The Nets, however, waived Bembry in the Harden deal. They also acquired sharpshooter Seth Curry, who slots into the Harris role as a 40% career three-point shooter. The Nets also signed Goran Dragic, a career 36% three-point shooter, not to mention the lights-out shooting they get from Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Patty Mills.
Brown’s impact directly benefited from the Harden deal in that one player of his ilk went out for another floor spacer in Curry. The added bonus, of course, is that the Nets rely on him defensively. The offense is the cherry on top.
“Bruce has been great, locked in defensively. We’ve pushed him to find his identity down there,” said head coach Steve Nash. “It’s just winning basketball plays he makes over and over. Love his competitiveness, his spirit, and defensively he’s really locked in.”
The full Brown experience was on display in the Nets’ shorthanded victory over the Knicks, a game Durant scored 53 points to lead Brooklyn — a championship contender — to just a three-point victory over the Eastern Conference’s 12th seed.
The Nets were already without Irving (unvaccinated and ineligible), Harris (ankle) and LaMarcus Aldridge (hip) when they got the news shortly before tipoff that Curry would be unavailable to play due to a lingering ankle injury. The absences moved both Mills and Dragic into the starting lineup, but the pair of veteran guards only combined for 12 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the field.
Brown turned in one of his most complete performances of the season to support Durant’s dominance and help lift the Nets to a victory the Knicks nearly stole down the stretch. He played 41 minutes and scored 15 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field to go with his seven rebounds, five assists and two steals for the game.
“Last year, we used him as a screener and roller to the rim, and he is effective in that role,” Durant said of Brown. “But now, I think it helped him and his development as a player playing in different spots on the floor. So this year, he’s playing like an all-around player: a guard, shooting threes, getting it off the rim, defending as he always does. Seven rebounds, five assists, two steals. Fifteen points. He is playing with ultimate confidence.”
Brown could have signed elsewhere during free agency last summer but rejoined the Nets because they had “unfinished business” after falling short of a championship amid a rash of injuries. Earlier this year, that looked like a bad bet. His decline in production to start the season made significant contract offers look like an afterthought.
Brown has proven, however, that under the right circumstances, he can thrive and be a complete player at his position. He has improved the glaring hole in his game — a previously broken three-point shot that is falling now with regularity — and Durant says the improvements aren’t coming to an end any time soon.
“I look at Bruce as still a younger player, and when you start to see younger players figure out what they want to do in this league, it’s fun to see in real time,” he said of Brown. “I’m just excited he’s getting better and better. He’s not complacent with where he is right now. I can tell you that.”
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