The Nets have mostly handled their business when they’re supposed to.
Through 13 games this season, the Nets boasted a 3-0 record against opponents with losing records and picked up two more wins against teams that came in at .500. They won in decisive fashion against an upstart Orlando Magic team that entered that game 5-4.
Wins against the NBA’s elite, however, have repeatedly eluded them.
Brooklyn began the season with back-to-back losses to the Cavaliers and Mavericks, who are both expected to compete for solid seeding in their respective conferences. The Nets are a combined 0-4 against the Celtics, Bucks and 76ers, whom many consider the top three teams in the East.
Their other loss through Wednesday came against the defending Eastern Conference champions, the Miami Heat. It all added up to a 6-7 record.
The Nets, armed with depth and versatility but lacking a clear-cut superstar, believe they’re capable of more, but know they need to clean up some things if they’re going to compete with top-tier teams.
“It’s a discipline,” coach Jacque Vaughn said at Nets practice Tuesday. “It is leaning more into ‘always’ instead of ‘sometimes.’ We have been, sometimes, pretty good in possessions. We need to shift that always.”
He continued, “Whether that is always defending and being in our right position; whether that’s always kicking the ball ahead and having multiple ball-handlers; whether that’s always playing with pace once we get a rebound, that’s our challenge as a group. When you play the better teams, it just gets emphasized even more, because if you don’t do it, you’re gonna lose.”
The Nets hung close in many of their losses. Cleveland’s Donovan Mitchell and Dallas’ Luka Doncic made three-pointers with under 30 seconds remaining in those games to pull ahead for good. Brooklyn’s first loss to Boston was still a one-point game a few minutes into the fourth quarter. The Nets’ 129-125 loss to Milwaukee was tied with less than 1:30 remaining.
One of Brooklyn’s wins came against the Heat, who fell to 1-4 at the time but rebounded with a seven-game win streak that included a victory over the Nets in a rematch last week. The Nets also beat the star-powered Clippers, who are still finding their chemistry after adding James Harden to Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook late last month.
But the Nets looked overmatched in recent losses to the Celtics, Heat and 76ers, the latter of whom dealt them their most lopsided defeat of the season at 121-99.
Miami pulled ahead for good on Nov. 16 with a 14-0 run going into halftime. The Sixers closed the second quarter of Sunday’s game on a 20-5 run.
“We gotta dance in the storm,” said Nets guard Lonnie Walker. “There’s times, you know, the game’s all about runs, and you get punched in the face. Instead of us backpedaling, we gotta continue to fight. We can’t put our heads down or be upset. Don’t think about the last possession, just keep on moving forward. I think it all starts with trying to be more defensive-minded, including myself. Not let our offense dictate our defense, let our defense dictate our offense.”
The Nets have been incomplete for much of the season. They lost a pair of starters — forward Cam Johnson (calf strain) and center Nic Claxton (ankle sprain) — for an extended stretch after both suffered injuries in the season opener. Starting point guard Ben Simmons (lower-back nerve impingement) and leading scorer Cam Thomas (ankle sprain) are now out with injuries.
Those absences interrupted the progress of a team that added four key players in Johnson, Mikal Bridges, Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith last February in the midseason trades that sent Kevin Durant to Phoenix and Kyrie Irving to Dallas.
The Nets’ new core doesn’t still doesn’t have much experience playing together compared to some of the NBA’s top teams that have been in place longer.
That includes Miami, which advanced to NBA Finals twice in the past four years behind Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson. The Nets face their next litmus test against a championship contender Saturday night when they host the Heat at Barclays Center in their third meeting of the season.
“The better teams have been together for a while, just because it’s second nature to them and [they] know where everybody’s gonna be at,” Bridges said. “I think we’re just not there yet. There’s nothing wrong with that, just because we haven’t been here that long, but just gotta figure it out.”
Still, Bridges doesn’t use injuries as an excuse.
“Obviously, we’d like to have our team, but nah, I think we’ve got good enough players where we can go out there and win,” Bridges said. “Just gotta execute and be on the same page.”
Peter Sblendorio
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