The Brooklyn Nets embraced a defensive identity entering their first season of the post-Kevin Durant-Kyrie Irving era. Yet, through 14 games, that end of the floor has held the new-look squad back.

The Nets rank 23rd in defensive rating and have allowed 130 points per game during their current three-game losing streak. Despite this, wholesale defensive changes aren't on the horizon.

“We’ve played some high-level dudes who have been able to score the basketball,” head coach Jacque Vaughn said when speaking on Brooklyn's struggles. “You gotta approach this thing and look at it similar to football sometimes. What are you gonna try to take away? The way our group is, the guys that are playing, I’ve gotta use what strengths they have until we’re back whole and healthy. A big piece of that is we have to give away something.”

“Every night we’re not gonna be able to out-rebound a person, out-shoot them, stop them from shooting threes, stop them from pick-and-rolls. And so we have to pick our poison some nights. We’ve been rewarded and we’ve had to pay the costs some nights. That’s just a part of it”

Giving up threes has been the poison, with Brooklyn allowing 40 attempts per night, the most in the NBA. The Nets have played far more drop coverage against the pick-and-roll this season compared to last year's switch-everything scheme, a change aimed at protecting the rim and improving their putrid rebounding.

The focus on protecting the paint has led to frequent three-point openings. Vaughn's squad has paid the price the last three games, with opponents averaging 16 three-point makes, the second-most in the NBA.

Brooklyn's defensive struggles came to a head Wednesday at Atlanta. The Nets allowed 147 points in an overtime loss, 77 of which came in the first half. The Hawks drained 18 threes, six of which came from Trae Young in the first quarter.

However, upon watching the film, Vaughn attributed his team's struggles to tough shotmaking rather than a flawed scheme.

“They made shots,” the coach said. “It’s interesting, you have a notion after the game what happened, and then you go back and actually watch the film and it tells you exactly what happened. The old eye in the sky don’t lie. So I watched the game a few ways. I watched it in succession of the threes that they made and why they made the threes and who made them.”

“A high level of those were contested, whether Trae (Young) shot a 35-footer, whether we had some in transition that we shouldn’t have given up, whether (Dejounte) Murray squares up three dudes and makes a shot. So you gotta look at the quality of those shots at the time. At the end of the day, besides the transition ones, they made shots. That’s a part of the NBA.”

The expression ” living and dying by the three ” usually applies to the offensive end of the floor. However, for the Nets, it has applied defensively, and they've been on the wrong end of three-point variance during their recent struggles.

Despite this, Brooklyn remains confident in their strategy early in the 2023-24 campaign, focusing on the positives of what they've been able to accomplish.

“We’re 13th in effective field goal percentage. We protect the rim; we’re top 10 in doing that. Top five in allowing people to shoot threes. Some nights they’re gonna make them,” Vaughn said. “I think overall we have to understand what we wanna be as a team and what our number one priority is. That’s protecting the rim.”

“I’ll keep saying it: every dude in this league can dunk and make a layup. That’s just the way the game is: offense has the advantage. So we have to be cognizant of taking something on a nightly basis. Throughout the course of the season we’re gonna play the game of guys have historically made or missed shots and some nights we’re gonna go into games where we’re gonna want a specific individual to take more shots than another. That’s just where we are.”