{"id":54445,"date":"2025-11-28T03:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T03:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54445\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T03:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T03:07:07","slug":"jordi-fernandez-trying-to-get-ziaire-williams-back-to-nets-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/54445\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordi Fernandez trying to get Ziaire Williams back to Nets potential"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Nets need Ziaire Williams to be their best defender, to get back to the way he played a year ago.<\/p>\n

So far, they haven\u2019t seen it this season.<\/p>\n

Coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez has tried to coax the best out of Williams, first with words and then with (lost) playing time. <\/p>\n

Williams took his first healthy DNP of the season Tuesday vs. the Knicks<\/a>, a clear message about his need to improve.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if the message was received. <\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be sure until the Nets take the court Friday \u2014 that is, if Williams even plays vs. the 76ers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very abstract question because I just talked to him and didn\u2019t play him last game,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez told The Post. \u201cSo if \u2014 whenever he has the next opportunity to play \u2014 he consistently does it, then we will see if I was successful or not. If not, it\u2019s not on him; it\u2019s on me to try to find ways for him to perform consistently.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnergy is not a subjective thing. \u2026 What we need is his ball pressure to be elite, his deflections to be elite, his pick-and-roll defense to be elite, his iso defense to be elite. \u2026 Last year, he was above average, one of the top players in the NBA. We need that to be the same or better because I know he can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JordiZiaire Williams defends during the Nets\u2019 Nov. 21 win over the Celtics. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

While Williams\u2019 3-point shooting improved, that outside stroke was just a bonus. What the Nets needed \u2014 and got \u2014 was defense.<\/p>\n

But after they re-signed him to a two-year, $12.5 million deal this summer, Williams has fallen off badly.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 defensive rebounding rate has cratered from an elite 94th percentile to a horrid 21st percentile, per Cleaning The Glass. <\/p>\n

His steal percentage has dipped from the 76th percentile to a middling 60th. <\/p>\n

And his defensive rating is a career low on both the league stats and Basketball Reference.<\/p>\n

After subtly prodding Williams earlier in the season, Fern\u00e1ndez took a stronger tack by pulling him from the rotation altogether this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to challenge him with his defense,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cLast year, he was elite in a lot of the things that we care [about] defensively, from ball pressure to deflections to pick-and-roll defense to defending isolations. He was huge and I haven\u2019t felt that energy. I can go through the numbers and they were not there. So, I challenge him to do that. I wasn\u2019t all the way happy with the last two games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just about giving an opportunity to somebody else, [and for Williams] to refocus, to be ready for the next opportunity. And when it comes, then just take it and sustain it and be the best defensive player on the team and one of the best in the NBA, which I believe he\u2019s more than capable of doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrooklynJordi Fernandez reacts during the Nets\u2019 Nov. 24 game against the Knicks. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n

While Williams is leading the team in deflections again, his iso defense has fallen off a cliff. <\/p>\n

He smothered foes to a stingy 0.79 points per possession last season and 39.5 effective field goal percentage, but has seen those balloon to 1.09 and 50 percent.<\/p>\n

Other than rookie Drake Powell, no other Net has more perimeter defensive potential than Williams. <\/p>\n

But will he ever reach it?<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cDrake \u2026 has shown defensively the sky\u2019s the limit for him, and with Ziaire I feel the same way,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez told The Post. \u201cWe played very good games with him as our best defender, and I know he can keep doing it consistently. So, that\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for, just consistency on that end, because he can do it without a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams, still just 24, acknowledged his struggles earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to do a better job for my teammates of holding my assignment better and being dialed in at all times. So, I feel like I\u2019ve let them down a little bit [at times],\u201d Williams said, admitting he\u2019d been pressing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, for sure. Definitely. Just trying to do too many things at once. Trying to save the world in one play. \u2026 It\u2019s all a learning process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Porter Jr. is out against Philadelphia with low back tightness<\/p>\n

Ben Saraf \u2014 who has been on G League assignment with Long Island \u2014 has been upgraded to questionable Friday, trying to return from a left ankle sprain. <\/p>\n

Fellow rookies Nolan Traore and Danny Wolf are still on G League assignment, while Cam Thomas (hamstring) and Haywood Highsmith (knee) are still out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nets need Ziaire Williams to be their best defender, to get back to the way he played…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,4570,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-54445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-jordi-fernandez","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}