The Nets’ season is barely underway, and it’s already the sort of begin that tries everybody’s endurance.
Perhaps that’s a part of the blueprint after final summer time’s failed bid for a top-three draft choose. Nonetheless, Monday’s 137-109 beatdown in Houston made it 4 straight losses to open the season, leaving the Nets among the many NBA’s winless few coming into Tuesday’s video games.
Brooklyn confirmed struggle in its comebacks in opposition to the Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs, however these efforts have been buried by the identical sluggish begins and defensive breakdowns which have outlined their early season. Head coach Jordi Fernández didn’t hesitate to shoulder the blame on Friday, pointing to himself and his teaching workers.
“Yeah, it’s on the coaches,” Fernández stated. “We have to keep working to get better every day, give them positive teaching points and hold them accountable. I think that brings the best out of everybody. If you watch the first game and the second, you see the difference between fighting and when adversity hits, staying together, talking to each other, and having great body language. Don’t get discouraged from being down 25 and fight all the way through. So, it’s on the guys when they respond and do good things. It’s on them. When they don’t, it’s on us, and that’s how this business works.”
However 4 video games in, Fernández’s message has but to take maintain. A 12 months after priding themselves on defensive effort and vitality, the Nets have opened the season trying disconnected and inconsistent on that finish.
The numbers are even uglier. The Nets have surrendered 522 factors in 4 video games, essentially the most by that span in franchise historical past, and their 131.2 defensive ranking ranks final within the league. Opponents are torching them at 53.7% from the sphere and 46.0% from deep. They haven’t recorded a single block because the season opener in Charlotte.
Defensive points have been hardly a shock for a staff constructed round scorers like Cam Thomas and Michael Porter Jr., and counting on three rookie level guards nonetheless studying point-of-attack protection and the finer particulars of the NBA sport.
However Fernández isn’t enthusiastic about excuses. Protection was meant to be Brooklyn’s commonplace, not its shortcoming. And if the Nets are going to get again on observe, one thing has to alter shortly earlier than this early skid snowballs into one thing much more damaging.
For all of the early setbacks, Brooklyn nonetheless has loads of time to regular the ship. 4 video games don’t outline a season. The problem now’s turning phrases into habits — and doing it for a full 48 minutes.
“The energy that we’ve had at times, I need consistency and urgency,” Fernández stated. “That’s one thing that we can not determine whether or not we’re going to do or not. It’s a matter of who we wish to be.
“It’s just unacceptable to take an NBA game for granted. Our guys are trying; they just don’t know how much harder and focused they can do things.”
