Brooklyn Hit Twenty Threes And Now I Wanna See What Happens When They Miss

Brooklyn went to Charlotte, beat the Hornets 124-90, and shot 20-for-37 from three. Twenty threes in a preseason opener is the kind of shit that makes everybody ready to announce they've found a new basketball system by Wednesday morning. 😂 Michael Porter Jr. put up 16 on 6-for-9 shooting and hit four of six from deep; Julius Randle had 13 and three assists; and the Nets finished with 31 team assists. I don't hate any of that. Actually, the part I liked most was the way Randle and MPJ fit without either dude needing to completely dominate the ball. Egor Dëmin had six points and five assists while looking more willing to get downhill. Charlotte, to be fair, was missing several important guys, so I'm not using this score to declare Brooklyn better than some team with its full rotation. But the Nets played with real pace, shared the ball, and got good looks. For a group with a lot of new pieces, that's a nice first impression.

But the first thing I want us testing when this becomes real basketball is what Brooklyn does on a night those threes ain't falling. Twenty makes on 37 attempts is over 54 percent, and that's not a number I'm putting into a FanDuel team total model like it belongs there every night. I'd rather pay attention to how many of those shots were actually open and who created them. Because if Randle is passing without forcing it and MPJ keeps getting clean catch-and-shoot looks, the process can still be good when the percentages come back down. Same thing with Dëmin's assists: does he keep making the right reads against a full NBA defense, or was Charlotte's depleted rotation giving him extra space? I love a hot shooting night, but I'm not selling myself some guaranteed offensive explosion because Brooklyn won an exhibition game by 34. I want to know whether their ball movement survives when the fucking shots stop going in.

Twenty made threes is an outcome. Creating those looks is the part I care about.6IX / WHAT I'M TAKING AWAY