Kevin Durant gets real about the Nets' defensive struggles

Just when some people thought the NBA wasn’t competitive anymore, the Brooklyn Nets put together one of the greatest, most intimidating offensive juggernauts basketball fans could ever imagine. In the biggest video-game fashion, they managed topairKyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and James Harden.Needless to say, there aren’t many teams that have the personnel to match their firepower or outscore them night in and night out, but it’s also clear that they’re stilla work in progress with rookie coach Steve Nashtrying to figure out how to make the most of these superstars.

However,history has proved over and over that you need more than offense to win an NBA championship, and the Nets had to give up a lot of depth to snatch Harden away from the Houston Rockets.

Now, they’re kind of shorthanded – especially in terms of stoppers – and they’ve struggled to defend even some of the worst defenses in the NBA. In fact, they were just the 4th team to lose to the league’s-worst Washington Wizards.

Kevin Durant Thinks The Brooklyn Nets Will Figure Things Out In The Defensive End

The Nets allowed 48 points in the fourth quarter, including a couple of late-game three-pointers to let an 8-point lead slip and lose 149-146 to the Wizards. Kevin Durant, however, still believes that they will turn the intensity up a notch in the defensive end:

“I got faith in our team and our guys and you know we going to start to put it together on both sides of the ball,” Kevin Durant said after the game.

His team owns a 119.9 defensive rating since trading for James Harden. That’s not only the worst defensive rating in the NBA right now but it would also be the worst defensive rating in league history. That’s not going to get the job done vs. contending teams.

Then again, now that they’ve signed Iman Shumpert and will likely add a rim protector via trade or free agency, those terrible numbers are certainly going to improve. It’s either that or likely a first-round exit in the playoffs for them, regardless of the unmatched and unprecedenteded offensive monster they’ve put together.