The Nets’ season is barely underway, and it’s already the kind of start that tries everyone’s patience.
Maybe that’s part of the blueprint after last summer’s failed bid for a top-three draft pick. Still, Monday’s 137-109 beatdown in Houston made it four straight losses to open the season, leaving the Nets among the NBA’s winless few entering Tuesday’s games.
Brooklyn showed fight in its comebacks against the Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs, but those efforts were buried by the same slow starts and defensive breakdowns that have defined their early season. Head coach Jordi Fernández didn’t hesitate to shoulder the blame on Friday, pointing to himself and his coaching staff.
“Yeah, it’s on the coaches,” Fernández said. “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.”
But four games in, Fernández’s message has yet to take hold. A year after priding themselves on defensive effort and energy, the Nets have opened the season looking disconnected and inconsistent on that end.
The numbers are even uglier. The Nets have surrendered 522 points in four games, the most through that span in franchise history, and their 131.2 defensive rating ranks last in the league. Opponents are torching them at 53.7% from the field and 46.0% from deep. They haven’t recorded a single block since the season opener in Charlotte.
Defensive issues were hardly a surprise for a team built around scorers like Cam Thomas and Michael Porter Jr., and relying on three rookie point guards still learning point-of-attack defense and the finer details of the NBA game.
But Fernández isn’t interested in excuses. Defense was meant to be Brooklyn’s standard, not its shortcoming. And if the Nets are going to get back on track, something has to change quickly before this early skid snowballs into something far more damaging.
For all the early setbacks, Brooklyn still has plenty of time to steady the ship. Four games don’t define a season. The challenge now is turning words into habits — and doing it for a full 48 minutes.
“The energy that we’ve had at times, I need consistency and urgency,” Fernández said. “That’s something that we cannot decide whether we’re going to do or not. It’s a matter of who we want 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.”
