Jacque Vaughn: Nets players ‘concerned about winning’ amid blowout losing streak
After yet another blowout loss in the aftermath of the mega trades that sent Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving out West — including the second lopsided loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden during this stretch — Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn suggested team morale has taken a hit.
“We have some competitive guys, and so they are concerned about winning. We always have made that the priority. We’re not hiding from that,” Vaughn said after Brooklyn’s 142-118 loss to the Knicks on Wednesday. “We’re trying to win every single game, and so I ask that we give just more. What that means, whether it’s more time together, back to backs, shootarounds, recovery days, all of the above. We’re gonna have to give more to bring our group together quicker than normal.”
The Nets fell to a 34-28 record with Wednesday’s landslide to the Knicks. They now have a 2-6 record in games that followed the Feb. 9 NBA trade deadline and have lost four games in a row — with another expected loss looming in the defending conference champion Boston Celtics, waiting for the Nets on Friday.
More concerning than the number of losses, however, is the nature of defeat in Brooklyn.
The Nets trailed by as many as 25 in their 18-point loss to the Knicks on Feb. 13. They gave up a whopping 50-point advantage in their 44-point loss to the Chicago Bulls in the first game out of the All-Star break. They came back from down 18 to lose on a Trae Young buzzer-beater in Atlanta, then got flat-out steamrolled by Giannis Antetokounmpo, who posterized every capable defender to erase an 18-point Brooklyn’s lead and beat the Nets by 14.
And then, in a game that meant more to Mikal Bridges because he played at Villanova with two Knicks players — Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart — the Nets gave up 142 points, the second-most they’ve given up since the Sacramento Kings hung 153 points on them in November.
“To give up 142 points to your cross-town [rival] that hurts, and it should hurt,” Vaughn said. “I asked them at halftime too, if it did hurt as a group, the care factor rising to a different level.”
The Nets profile as an above average defensive team, but there is a clear drop off from the names on paper to the product on the floor.
That’s because for all the length, athleticism and defensive prowess the Nets gained in the trades that sent Durant and Irving out West, they haven’t been able to generate enough stops.
The proof is in the pudding: The Nets have given up 30 or more points in a quarter in 12 of the 16 quarters they’ve played since coming out of the All-Star break. The Nets also allowed the Knicks to score 47 and 34 points in the opening two quarters of Wednesday’s blowout loss at Madison Square Garden. They have been blown out in four of their last six games.
There’s even more data suggesting the Nets are worse defensively than meets the eye: Brooklyn entered Wednesday night giving up 122 points per 100 possessions, good for the NBA’s third-worst defensive rating behind only the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets, who own the NBA’s worst record.
“We tried some different things schematically tonight to get a look at it, and there were some positives and some negatives about it,” Vaughn said. “We just haven’t had time to practice that. We’ll use some opportunities going forward to practice different schemes, because we’ll need it going forward.
“I’m learning the strengths and weaknesses of this group, not where their previous stops were. It’s a culmination of this group together and what it presents, so I am learning that, and my job is to convince them to buy into us doing it together.”
Compounding matters for a Nets team struggling to string together stops is the pressure to retain playoff standing — along with a strong remaining schedule.
The Nets have fallen behind the Knicks to the Eastern Conference’s sixth seed. If they fall anywhere from seventh to tenth, they will have to play in a sudden-death Play-In Tournament to earn their playoff seeding.
That’s only if the Nets don’t fall to 11th, and they way they have acquitted themselves out of the All-Star break, an extended losing streak is on the table.
“We’ve really gotta take a step defensively,” Vaughn said. “We were all concerned about us scoring and putting up points, and I think we have enough firepower to do that, but we have to take our defensive mindset to a different level. We have to be extremely confident in guarding the guy in front of you, take pride in doing that, because that’s the first part of our defense.”
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