The 2015-16 NBA season is over in New York City, and for fans of New York basketball, it’s reached its lowest point. No postseason on either side of the Manhattan or Brooklyn bridges. No Brooklyn Nets. No New York Knicks.
Brooklyn finished second to last in the Eastern Conference standings, only good enough for 14th place among the 15 Eastern Conference teams. The Knicks finished slightly better, 13th once again, falling short of their worthiness to play in a building deemed, “the world’s most famous arena.”
For the Brooklyn Nets, there were some takeaways and some highlights. There was the overtime loss to the best team in basketball, the Golden State Warriors, and their recent back-to-back victories against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the number one Eastern Conference seed, and the Indiana Pacers, the seventh seed. Seeds or seedings determines a team’s rank in the hierarchy of other playoff teams. The top eight in each conference participate in the postseason, the playoffs, which begin this weekend. The rest get to rest, to think about getting better and about not being there.
Besides being near last in the East, top three in losses overall, out of the postseason and one of those teams that won’t be there for the first time since the 2012-13 season, Brooklyn ranked 26th in league scoring. They averaged 98.5 points per game but gave up, on average, 105.9 points per game.
Their best players include center Brook Lopez, who averaged 20.6 points per game and while forward ranked 20th in the league, and Thaddeus Young, who averaged nine rebounds and ranked 17th. Young also compiled 28 double-doubles, 21st in the league, and Lopez amassed 26 double-doubles, 25th in the league. Double-doubles are the compilation of 10 or more of something in two categories, such as points, rebounds, assists, steals or blocks. A triple-double, a category in which Brooklyn failed to achieve in this season, is the compilation of 10 or more of something in three of those categories.
While Brooklyn’s production declined, the better Eastern Conference teams improved in the win column from last year. Seventh- and eighth-seeded teams posted winning records, unlike the losing records that the seventh- and eighth-seeded teams posted last season.
With Lopez, Young, forward Bojan Bogdanovic and newly acquired guard Sean Kilpatrick, from the NBA’s D League, Brooklyn’s new GM Sean Marks has a nucleus to build on, but he will have to put an asterisk on getting Brooklyn to improve defensively. One of their biggest problems, one that not only frustrated interim head coach Tony Brown but also frustrated his predecessor, veteran coach Lionel Hollins, who Brown replaced in early January, was the team getting behind early in games, thus having to play catch up as well as compete. Monday night’s loss to the Washington Wizards exemplified the problem. They were down 20 nothing in the first quarter before tallying any points.
“To lay back and allow these teams to put up these big numbers early in the games is unacceptable,” said Brown. “We finally got into some games. I thought we had some really good success out there. We have to be scrappy, and that’s how we have to play.” Brooklyn logged their 60th loss of the season, 120-111 to the Washington Wizards at home in Brooklyn.
“We started off horribly—the first unit, especially me,” stated Bogdanovic, reflecting on his team’s play at the start of the game. “We didn’t go into the game ready, but in the end, we fight,” Bogdanovic said. A mantra that can serve Brooklyn well next season. For now, this season, it’s over.
