PHILADELPHIA — The Nets need to find a way to play Dorian Finney-Smith more playoff minutes, and fast — even if it requires solving a math problem.
Finney-Smith is one of the team’s most physical players, and his extended court presence is needed for a Nets team struggling with the 76ers’ physicality in their first-round playoff matchup against the Sixers.
The issue? The Nets also need size to match up against superstar big man Joel Embiid. The biggest player on Brooklyn’s roster is reserve big man Day’Ron Sharpe.
Vaughn says Finney-Smith and Sharpe are splitting the same minutes, a development since Finney-Smith plays both the four and small-ball five while Sharpe plays backup five exclusively.
“You’ve got the full question of, ‘Do you play Day’Ron?’” head coach Jacque Vaughn said ahead of tipoff in Game 2 against the Sixers on Monday. “Day’Ron is supposedly one of our bigger dudes also.”
Finney-Smith played 18 minutes against the Sixers in Game 1. He hit both of his attempts from downtown and guarded a number of Sixers’ scorers, including both Embiid and star guard James Harden.
Sharpe played 17 minutes off the bench, the first playoff minutes of his early career, and aside from biting on a pump fake that sent Embiid to the line for two free throws, the second-year big man out of North Carolina played well. He tallied six points, six rebounds and four assists, punctuating his night with a chase-down block on Harden that he pinned on the backboard.
“Are you gonna give the whole 36 [minutes] to Doe, or you gonna split it 18 and 17 kinda like we did with Day’Ron?” Vaughn said on Monday. “That’s the question we have. And so can we use both of those guys to be physical and aggressive in those minutes? And whatever minutes it is, you have to step up and play physical.”
Finney-Smith, however, had the best net rating of any Nets player in Game 1.
The Sixers only outscored the Nets by two in the 18 minutes he was on the floor. For reference, they outscored the Nets by 13 in minutes Royce O’Neale played.
O’Neale is usually one of Vaughn’s first substitutions and traditionally checks in for Finney-Smith in the first quarter.
“I mean, whatever coach needs me to do,” Finney-Smith said after shootaround at the Wells Fargo Center Monday morning. “I just want to win. So you know, if he feels like [there are] other guys out there that can contribute to winning, then I can’t — I ain’t got nothing to say.”
Increasing Finney-Smith’s workload could also be an option for Vaughn to combat grizzled forward P.J. Tucker.
Tucker gave the Nets fits in Game 1: He played 25 minutes and grabbed five offensive rebounds, hit two threes, recorded five steals and dished two assists.
“It’s gonna be a physical game. We’ve got to want it to be physical and expect it to be physical,” Finney-Smith said Monday morning. “So we’ve got to meet that challenge. P.J. — I feel like P.J. was…he affected the game just by his aggression and his activity, and we’ve just got to match it.”
Finney-Smith averaged just under 28 minutes per game since his mid-season trade to Brooklyn. The Nets boasted a 7-2 regular-season record in games he hit at least two threes.
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