Slow Starts a Point of Focus for Brooklyn Nets Head Coach and Players

Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernández discussed his team’s Saturday night loss against the Detroit Pistons, marking the Nets’ fourth straight defeat. He pointed to the Nets’ poor shooting — 30.5% from the field, 15.4% from three — as the main factor.

“It's hard to win a basketball game when you shoot like this,” Fernández said. “We created 24 points out of 27 turnovers, which it tells you that we were aggressive and we created turnovers. But [...] the shooting was not good enough, and the defense in the first half was poor.”

The Nets only made six three-pointers against the Pistons, a paltry figure that came just two games after a franchise-record 61 attempted threes. Cam Johnson, Brooklyn’s best shooter, was 0-for-10 from deep and 3-for-20 from the field. Fernández wants his team to keep shooting.

“I think that we took good shots,” he said. “In the NBA, if you can let it go, these guys are so good that, if you are able to take the shot, you should be, especially if they’re catch-and-shoot threes. I’m not concerned about the amount of shots. It’s just: gotta be ready.”

The Nets fought back in the second half to cut their deficit to six points, but it was again a case of too little, too late. Tyrese Martin, who led Brooklyn in scoring with 23 points, found a silver lining in his team’s late rally.

“It shows our resilience,” he said. “There is no such thing as moral victories [..] but that’s something we could definitely take away. It just shows that everybody else was out there being able to compete, play hard and [giving] ourselves a chance to win this game.”

Brooklyn fought back in the third, but capitulated in the fourth. The team went 4-for-19 from the field in the last period of the game. Two of those baskets came in the last minute of the game, when the Nets were already down by more than 20 points.

Martin mentioned his team’s slow start, saying that Brooklyn was “playing from behind” since the beginning of the contest. The Nets have now lost five of their six games. Martin’s teammate Keon Johnson agreed that the Nets need “the right focus going into the game.”

“We make one mistake on the floor and then we compile them with other mistakes, so as a team, we just gotta get better mentally and just [be] prepared for our starts,” the 22-year-old guard said.

Next, the Nets will visit the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night. Brooklyn will be looking to bounce back from this poor run of form, including this recent back-to-back. They are currently 21-39, and projected to start drafting at No. 6.

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