Brooklyn Nets HC Jordi Fernández Discusses D’Angelo Russell and Cam Thomas Pairing

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernández lamented his team’s 3-point defense, as they dropped a Tuesday night road game to the San Antonio Spurs.

“Our defense was not good enough, and that’s what we have to embrace right now,” Fernández said, pointing to his team’s next game.

The Nets will host the Golden State Warriors at Barclays Center on Thursday night. Brooklyn gave up 18 threes to the Spurs.

“Right now, if we struggle defending the three, we're about to play a team that shoots the three very well, right?” Fernández said. “And [they’ve] got the best shooter in the world, so it's a good challenge that actually makes a lot of sense. Let's get better at defending threes, and there's no better way to play against this team now.”

Fernández also wasn’t pleased with points allowed in the paint and off turnovers. The Spurs outscored the Nets 62-40 in the paint on Tuesday.

“13 [turnovers] is not concerning, but the nature of the turnovers if they're able to score 23 points, that's pretty concerning,” Fernández said.

D’Angelo Russell returned for Brooklyn against San Antonio. The 29-year-old hadn’t played since rolling his ankle on Feb. 20. Russell had 12 points and four assists in 25 minutes.

He reentered Fernández’s starting five, replacing former 10-day Killian Hayes who is no longer with the team, and also marking his first start alongside Cam Thomas. That gave Brooklyn a new look.

“I think we saw good things, especially on the offensive end,” the Nets head coach said. “I still want our effort fly[ing] around to be better defensively. But offensively, it’s always great to have two ballhandlers, CT is a weapon, and everybody has to pay attention [to him].”

Thomas finished with 24 points in 26 minutes on 8-of-19 shooting. He put up a team-high 13 threes, making four. The percentages will get better, like Fernández said, but he liked Thomas letting it fly from deep.

What the Nets’ bench boss enjoyed the most, though, was his star guard’s facilitating. Thomas had six assists to only one turnover. The 23-year-old has only had more assists once this season (seven, against the Philadelphia 76ers on Nov. 22).

“That's very, very good, and he had more potential assists — hockey assists,” Fernández said. “That's how we value for him — not just the assists, but the potential ones. If it gets close to 10 or over 10, [that’s] very good, and that’s the CT we wanna see.”

Thomas' next steps, Fernández said, are on defense. Specifically, the Brooklyn coach pointed to his ball pressure, stick-hand defending and assignments.

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