{"id":47869,"date":"2020-08-17T03:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/nets-not-backing-down-from-daunting-raptors-challenge\/"},"modified":"2020-08-17T03:01:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T00:01:00","slug":"nets-not-backing-down-from-daunting-raptors-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/nets-not-backing-down-from-daunting-raptors-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"#Nets not backing down from daunting Raptors challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Nets not backing down from daunting Raptors challenge<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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August 16, 2020 |<\/span> 8:01pm |<\/span> Updated August 16, 2020 | 8:26pm<\/span><\/p>\n

\n Despite losing nine players along the way to injury or illness, the Nets clawed their way through the NBA\u2019s craziest regular season and into the postseason. Their reward? Defending champion Toronto, and arguably the league\u2019s best defense.<\/p>\n

Interim coach Jacque Vaughn steadied the Nets after Kenny Atkinson\u2019s dismissal and led them to a surprising run through the restart in Orlando. They\u2019ll tip off Game<\/a> 1 at 4 p.m. on Monday at ESPN Wide World of Sports convinced they\u2019ve not only earned their playoff berth but have a shot against the Raptors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a level of excitement. There\u2019s a level of just knowing we earned our way to being here, we earned our chance to be here,\u201d Caris LeVert said. \u201cWe know that we have a battle, we know they\u2019re the defending champs. But we\u2019re going in there knowing that we like our chances against anybody, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever chances they have revolve around LeVert, who has lifted the Nets to a 14-10 mark since Kyrie Irving went down in February. And he\u2019s gone to another level in the bubble, averaging 25 points, 6.7 assists and five boards.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019ll have a tough time app<\/a>roaching that against a Raptors defense that was second in the league this season, and first in the restart.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/img>
The Nets will face the Raptors in the first round of the NBA playoffs.<\/span>Corey Sipkin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a definite challenge,\u201d Vaughn said. \u201cWe talk about good-to-great. Sometimes good is going to be OK, being able to get that advantage and take advantage of it as quickly as we can and live with the results. Our guys will have an opportunity to make and take shots. We\u2019ll allow them to do it and see what the result is.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard enough to even force switches against Toronto\u2019s scrambling, athletic defense. They run foes off the line and rotate to cover each other well. But even if the Nets get in the paint, they\u2019ll find the long-armed defense collapsing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t like giving up layups, which means kick-out 3s will be open. But as a team we have to shoot them. There\u2019s a term in the NBA called good-to-great: passing up a good shot to get a great shot,\u201d Garrett Temple said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst Toronto \u2014 because of the way they\u2019re able to scramble \u2014 a good shot needs to be good enough, and we\u2019ve got to have confidence to catch it, make the right play once we get to the paint, kick it out and let those shots fly. If there\u2019s a mismatch or isn\u2019t, that\u2019s how you expose a defense. You\u2019ve got to catch-and-shoot and be confident shooting the basketball, even with people closing out at us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even after losing Kawhi Leonard last offseason, the Raptors posted the NBA\u2019s second-best record behind All-Star Pascal Siakam and veteran guard Kyle Lowry. The latter \u2014 the last man left from the two teams\u2019 2014 playoff series<\/a> \u2014 said Toronto isn\u2019t defending its title, but hunting a new one.<\/p>\n

Against a championship team this focused, the Nets will need excellence from their Bubble Big 3 of LeVert, Jarrett Allen and Joe Harris to have any chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a challenge for us all around, 1-through-5, even on the bench,\u201d said Allen, who\u2019ll have to deal with centers Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol. \u201cThey\u2019re all coming out ready to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughn is 7-3 as interim coach with wins over the Lakers, Bucks and Clippers, and has the Nets playing their best basketball of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re confident,\u201d Temple said. \u201cWe really love the way that we\u2019re playing right now, especially on the offensive end, sharing the basketball. Defensively we\u2019re communicating a lot better, we understand our concepts, what we\u2019re trying to do in terms of the defensive game plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have six, seven new guys on the team, and over these eight games we\u2019ve learned each other more and more, so the confidence in that, chemistry is much higher. So I feel good going into it and about the game plan we have.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you want to read more Sports News<\/a> articles, you can visit our General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Nets not backing down from daunting Raptors challenge” August 16, 2020 | 8:01pm | Updated August 16, 2020 | 8:26pm Despite losing nine players along the way to injury or illness, the Nets clawed their way through the NBA\u2019s craziest regular season and into the postseason. Their reward? Defending champion Toronto, and arguably the league\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54243],"class_list":["post-47869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-nets-not-backing-down-from-daunting-raptors-challenge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}