Right now, a third of the way through a season that hasn’t gone as expected, the Nets are being challenged.
Challenged by COVID-19 circumstances. Challenged by their coach. And challenged by each other, to get their minds right before Wednesday’s game against the Pacers.
“It’s up to the team to decide what type of team they want to be, what they want to get out of this experience,” coach Steve Nash said. “I’m sure every team is going through this to some extent, with the heavy schedule, missing bodies, all sorts of stuff thrown at us. I don’t think we’re in isolation here; there’s a lot of teams that struggle with this from different nights. But our team needs to challenge themselves and figure out who they want to be, and what they want to represent together.
“Having played the game, a certain amount of that comes down to team-building within that locker room, and deciding if they want to come together and be a force, or if that’s not as important. Right now they’ve been tested here, whether they want to become that team that’s tough and connected and competitive every single night. And that’s got to come from within that room. As coaches we’ll keep trying to get better and solve some of the issues, but the No. 1 issue [is] competitive spirit.”
Nash was discussing digging a 20-point hole in losing to the last-place Pistons on Tuesday. But what he was really ruing was a recurring lack of fire and intensity.
“Win or lose, I want to see a lot more compete and grit and toughness, and togetherness, frankly. I want to see us form into a closer, tighter unit and competitive spirit, and results will come. But that’s the first step,” Nash said.
“Defense is a sacrifice. … It takes a willingness to do the extra work, to be either extremely hard-working and physical and/or totally locked-in mentally so that you’re a step ahead. Right now, we’re too far away from both of those concepts. We need to be way more locked in, way more physical, way more competitive and way more connected.”
With Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant (who is expected to return Saturday at Golden State), the Nets have enough firepower. What they haven’t shown is a commitment to defend, at least consistently.
“Steve is right: It takes pride, it takes effort, it takes a will night-to-night to get up for the guys you’re playing with,” Irving said. “When we play against the best, you’re going to see a great game because it’s easy to get up for those. But the consistency of a lot of the great teams that’ve gone on to win is they do it on the road, at home, against the good teams and against the average teams.
“When we can develop that goal-oriented mindset that we want to continue to be great every single night, and it’s a collection of individuals doing it as a team, then we’ll be great. Until then we’ll just look like great guys that look good on paper and still haven’t figured it out yet.”
The Nets came into Wednesday dead last in defensive rating since the Harden trade. Though they were 7-1 facing teams .500 or better, but their 7-11 mark against losing squads shows a lack of focus.
Both Nash and Harden took DeAndre Jordan aside and had multiple conversations with the struggling center after he appeared to be late defensively.
“This is on us,” Jordan said.
“We can’t play people’s records or score. We just have to continue to play the game of basketball the right way. We can’t turn it on when we’re down big and expect to get back in the game. Some nights it works and some nights you get your [butt] kicked. That’s a part of respecting the game.”
With a third of the season gone and a five-game Western swing looming, it remains to be seen if the Nets learned anything from the latest butt-kicking.
