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The Spurs have rallied after losing their first two games of the season, rattling off four wins in a row. They are starting to round into form while still having room for growth, looking like the contender their talent suggests they can be, through ups and downs.

Among the areas that still need improvement is the play of the second unit. And among the reserves, Luke Kornet has been getting a lot of scrutiny, as he hasn’t bounced back to the form he showed last year and now has an exciting rookie behind him who has looked productive in limited minutes.

In the Spurs’ latest win against the shorthanded Timberwolves, Kornet looked good, but his solid performance won’t completely get him off the hook from those who might want to see Tarris Reed Jr. get a chance to fight for the backup center spot as soon as possible.

While the rookie should get his opportunity if Kornet continues to struggle, for now, being patient with the veteran seems like the right move.

The offense is terrible with Kornet on the floor, but it’s not necessarily his fault

It’s always tricky to put too much stock in advanced numbers with so few minutes to go by, but they are not kind to Kornet. The Spurs score just 100.5 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor, a ghastly number. His limitations on that end are well-known, and it doesn’t feel like he has developed any other tools, such as a floater, to change that. His strengths, however, are also clear and are not insignificant.

Kornet is a good screener. In just 14.6 minutes a game, he’s averaging 2.7 screen assists, the 18th most in the league, and those screen assists are resulting in six points per game, the 25th-best mark in the league. Now, screen assists tend to be higher for limited role-playing centers who don’t get the ball back after initially freeing their ball-handler. There’s a reason why Victor Wembanyama averages fewer despite playing over twice as many minutes as Luke: Wemby screens, then the guards find him, and Wemby scores. The Alien leads the league in plays finished as the pick-and-roll dive man, which makes sense. Luke can’t do that. Context is important.

Still, the screening is good, as anyone who has watched Kornet play can attest to, and while he doesn’t finish after a pass, he has another skill that he can use after setting them: grabbing offensive rebounds. His offensive rebound percentage has dipped slightly from last year, but it’s still very good.

So if Kornet is doing his job on offense, why are the Spurs struggling to score when he’s on the floor? First, he’s currently posting an uncharacteristically high turnover percentage that is bound to come down significantly. He’s been fumbling passes and losing offensive boards, and while he’ll always do that to an extent, there’s simply no way he continues to do it at the pace his done it so far. If he somehow does, he won’t only be out of the rotation but out of the league soon. Second, the Spurs are shooting very few threes per possession when he’s on the floor (in part explained by the fact that Kornet doesn’t take them) while also connecting on just 33.2 percent of them. When Kornet is off the floor, that number climbs to 35.9 on more attempts.

There’s a decent chance the Spurs simply start shooting better when Kornet is on the floor, and there’s no way his turnover percentage remains as high, considering his usage. Mitch Johnson should try giving Reed Jr. some minutes whenever possible, but prematurely giving up on Kornet because of the offense’s struggles would be unwise.

The defense’s big problem seems more related to lineups than whoever plays center

If the offense was the only issue, there would be little reason to demote Kornet. The problem is, the Spurs have also been horrendous on defense, both by the numbers and the eye test, when Wembanyama is not on the floor. A big decline in efficiency is obviously expected when the best defender of his generation rests, but so far, it’s been precipitous. No one expects Kornet to match Wemby, but a 22-point swing in points allowed per 100 possessions is simply too big and not even close to the more reasonable seven-point swing from last season.

Even though the numbers should normalize with more minutes, Kornet just hasn’t looked good out there. Still, he’s rebounding at a decent level, but the Spurs are allowing a lot of second-chance points when he’s on the floor anyway, and while his allowing a very low percentage at the rim when he’s the closest defender, other teams’ points in the paint have been high.

What those numbers suggest, then, is that maybe the issue is not necessarily Kornet but the teammates he shares the floor with. Mitch Johnson explicitly said that the struggles of units featuring Kornet have to be seen as collective instead of individual, because there are four other players out there with him, and he’s right.

Kornet has shared the floor very often with Keldon Johnson, a poor defender, and those minutes have been horrendous. In lineups that feature more of the starters (and once again, the numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt), the defensive rating is much lower. Most other Spurs are also used to playing a very aggressive style of perimeter defense when Wembanyama is around, and Kornet simply can’t cover as much space as Wemby does or erase or deter as many shots at the rim once the ball handler gets past the first line of defense. The new lineups developing familiarity should help.

As with the offense, it seems like Kornet, while partially responsible, is not individually to blame for the bad results. He has not been as good as he was last season so far, but a combination of issues involving the lineups he’s in and some seemingly aberrant numbers that should, on paper, get back to normal with a bigger sample size are likely the biggest reasons for the poor performance of the bench units.

Tarris Reed Jr. could be a better option, but it’s far from a certainty

Whether Kornet can go back to being the version of himself from last season, which was a perfectly good backup in most matchups, is irrelevant if there’s a better option waiting in the wings. If Reed Jr. is simply a superior player, he should be getting Kornet’s minutes.

There are two issues with any claim that he is, however. The first is that he’s untested, which can only be solved by playing him, but the second has to do with the limitations that Reed has displayed so far.

The rookie has shown some touch around the rim and, perhaps more importantly, more ambition in terms of finishing plays when he gets the ball in the paint than the more passive Kornet, but they both share strengths and weaknesses. Kornet is likely the better screener while Reed Jr. is almost certainly a better offensive rebounder, but neither spaces the floor either horizontally, as both have limited range, or vertically, as they are both big but not explosive. Passing has never been Reed Jr.’s biggest strength, so he won’t likely offer another dimension to the offense in that area, at least as a rookie.

Defensively, both Reed Jr. and Kornet are only suited for drop coverage, since their foot speed is limited, and both are at their best close to the rim. While the rookie might offer more energy, that could be a plus when it becomes contagious, but it can also be a negative if it results in chaos. Kornet is likely a better steadying force in that regard due to his experience, while once again Reed Jr. has an edge in rebounding. Both have similarly good cases for the non-Wemby minutes.

If Kornet continues to struggle, Mitch Johnson should absolutely give the rookie some more playing time, but Reed Jr. shouldn’t be considered an automatic upgrade over Kornet that will solve every issue. Especially if the only change the coaching staff makes is to swap the two in the rotation instead of figuring out the other problems with the non-Wembanyama units.

Kornet is far from untouchable, and he might lose his spot eventually. But there’s no rush to make a change now, as the season is long and the Spurs are clearly still a work in progress, trying to figure out more important things than their backup center situation.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Michael Porter Jr. scored 23 points, and Julius Randle had 20 points to lead the Nets to a 98-90 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday night.

Day'Ron Sharpe had a double-double with 15 points and a team-high 13 rebounds for the Nets, who won for the first time this season. The Nets held a 43-37 edge in rebounds.

Andrew Nembhard led the Pacers with 23 points and Pascal Siakam had 17.

The Nets led by 12 three different times in the third quarter, but the Pacers cut the deficit to 75-72 in the first three minutes of the fourth with back-to-back 3-pointers by Larry Nance Jr. and Nembhard. That’s as close as Indiana got the rest of the way.

The Nets shot 38% in the first half but still managed to lead the Pacers 43-40 at halftime. Indiana made just 32% from the field and were just 4 of 20 from 3-point range. Both teams got off to sluggish starts with the Nets taking a 12-10 lead on Randle’s 3-pointer with less than five minutes left in the first quarter. That erased the Pacers’ last lead at 10-9.

Brooklyn pushed the lead to 71-62 after three quarters as both teams shot better in the second half.

The short-handed Pacers were without Obi Toppin, who was out with a lower back injury for the second consecutive game. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said Toppin is progressing and could play Monday. Indiana is still without Ivica Zubac, who is out with a left ankle sprain. Tyrese Haliburton is expected to be out another 10 days or more with a hamstring strain.

Nets rookie Mikel Brown Jr. sat out for load management to rest back with Brooklyn set to play the New York Knicks Monday night.

Up next

Nets: At New York on Monday night.

Pacers: Host Atlanta on Monday night.

INDIANAPOLIS — For much of Sunday night, the Nets couldn’t buy a basket.

By the end, they were no longer winless.

The Nets ground their way past the short-handed Pacers 98-90 before a sellout crowd of 17,274 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It wasn’t perfect or even easy, but it was enough.

“It wasn’t a pretty win, but it’s a win regardless. We got that zero out of that column, so we’re really happy about that,” Michael Porter Jr. said. “If you’re going to be a good team, eventually you’ve got to learn how to win games like this.

“Neither team shot the ball well. Neither team cracked 100 points. That’s the type of games we want to win. It was good resilience. Sometimes, we let bad offense dictate our defense, and [Sunday,] we just kept going, grinding it out.”

The Nets (1-5) entered Sunday grinding in first gear, their offense struggling and sputtering.

It still wasn’t crisp. But against an Indiana team without Tyrese Haliburton, Ivica Zubac, Obi Toppin and T.J. McConnell, their defense, rebounding and improved attack got the job done.

A week earlier, they’d suffered a 136-109 loss to these Pacers, memorable for Haliburton tossing the ball off the court to himself for a dunk. The Nets bounced back in the rematch for their first victory.

“It feels good. I can sleep a little bit better,” Julius Randle said. “But we’ve got a lot to improve on. I’m happy for the group. We’ve been working real hard. We’re sticking together in tough moments. … But it’s just a start — we know we can be a lot better. We need to continue to grow and build off what we did.”

That beats coming unglued in tough moments, which they’d done all too often.

Porter had 23 points and nine rebounds. Randle added 20 points, six assists and five boards. More importantly, he finished a plus-17, and wasn’t a ball stopper. The Nets cut better and made themselves available to Randle, who released the ball quicker to find his teammates.

“We just had a good talk [Saturday] as far as our offense, how we can just help each other out, things that we can get into,” Randle said.

“We were on the same page. I got into positions where maybe it was isolation and guys knew what I was looking for, and get into screen-and-rolls. It’s more diverse for me how I can attack. And it’s all of us on the page. Coaches want us to run, get to the corners. We got more organized with our sets, what we were trying to do. We got quality shots. We didn’t make them all, but if we keep playing like that, I promise you we’ll have a good chance.”

The Nets led 18-12 after a Porter free throw with 1:43 left in an ugly first quarter.

They were still clinging to a 43-40 edge at the break but came out of the locker room with a 9-0 run. They forced five straight misses and a turnover.

Porter started the run on a four-point play off a Randle assist. Nolan Traore (16 points, six assists) followed with his own 3, then added a midrange to make it 52-40 with 8:42 left in the third quarter.

The Nets saw their lead shaved down to three on an Andrew Nembhard 3-pointer that made it 75-72 with 9:29 to play. They never let the Pacers get any closer.

Day’Ron Sharpe finished with 15 points, 13 boards, four assists and hit his only attempted 3.

The Nets shot just 41.1 percent and 13-for-39 from deep. But the ball didn’t stick, the shot quality was better, and they didn’t let misses seep into porous defense.

“The ball has energy, and everybody touched the ball, and then there was movement of the ball and movement of bodies,” head coach Jordi Fernández said. “These games that you’re buying into doing the right things and the shots don’t fall, but you’re playing defense and stay together, those are the most important ones to me.”