{"id":63715,"date":"2025-12-08T00:26:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T00:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63715\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T00:26:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T00:26:07","slug":"nets-playing-like-different-team-with-encouraging-signs-showing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/63715\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets playing like ‘different team’ with encouraging signs showing"},"content":{"rendered":"

No longer among the laughingstocks of the NBA, the Nets have gone from winless in their first seven games, with just one victory through a dozen games, and 3-16 as recently as just over a week ago, to having won three of four.<\/p>\n

The reasons aren\u2019t complicated: Michael Porter Jr. has been a force when healthy; their defense, which was abysmal in the early going, has improved; and some of their rookies are starting to contribute.<\/p>\n

And as they wait to play their next game, Friday at Dallas, the Nets are 4-5 since Nov. 16.<\/p>\n

While they\u2019re far from a formidable team, they\u2019ve shown some encouraging signs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can feel, as a group, we\u2019re getting better,\u201d Porter said following their most recent victory, which came at Barclays Center against New Orleans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew going into the season we had a young group and it was gonna take some time,\u2019\u2019 Porter said of the inexperienced roster after the Nets selected five players in the first round of the NBA draft. \u201cBut we\u2019ve done a really good job getting better over the course of the season, and I feel we\u2019re a completely different team right now than we were Games 1 through 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael Porter Jr. dunks the ball during the Nets\u2019 Dec. 6 win over the Pelicans. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Back then, they were routinely giving up 120-plus points per game and seemed well on their way to a historically bad season.<\/p>\n

But coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez preached patience, and after getting an undermanned Nets team to a surprising 26 wins last year, he\u2019s begun to get the most out of this year\u2019s team, as well.<\/p>\n

It helps when the schedule offers up games against a three-win New Orleans team, as well as scuffling Charlotte and Chicago, as has been the case in the three victories, but it beats getting trounced on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never easy to win an NBA game,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cThis team has played a lot of close games and competed.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s resulted in more productive minutes from rookies like Egor D\u00ebmin, who had seven assists against New Orleans, as well as Danny Wolf (seven points, four rebounds and two assists in 19 minutes) and Ben Saraf (seven points, four assists).<\/p>\n

\"JordiJordi Fernandez reacts from the sideline during the Nets\u2019 Dec. 6 win over the Pelicans. Corey Sipkin for the NY Post<\/p>\n

Wolf has put up 12.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game over his past five and impressed Porter in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cDanny has, the last few games, really shown he\u2019s NBA ready,\u201d Porter said. \u201cHe\u2019s ready to contribute to winning right now and being depended on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez added, \u201cWe\u2019re taking positive steps. On both ends of the floor, we played the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

There also are issues that will take time to fix, like three turnovers apiece from D\u00ebmin and Wolf.<\/p>\n

Still, things could be much worse.<\/p>\n

Just ask New Orleans, which hasn\u2019t won a playoff series in nearly a decade, even after drafting Zion Williamson with the first-overall pick in 2019.<\/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

Williamson is hurt again, and the Pelicans, with the worst record in the league, don\u2019t even own their first-round pick next year, having traded it away in exchange for the pick they used on Derik Queen at No. 13.<\/p>\n

And the Nets\u2019 next game comes against a team in the Mavericks that ended up with the first-overall pick, when the lottery fortunes landed in their favor and they selected Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n

So Fern\u00e1ndez will continue to try to come up with ways for his young team to succeed and he said he\u2019s \u201chappy with the way we\u2019re evolving,\u201d especially on defense.<\/p>\n

But their schedule is about to get tougher, with games upcoming against the Mavericks and struggling Milwaukee before facing Miami, Toronto, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Golden State and Houston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No longer among the laughingstocks of the NBA, the Nets have gone from winless in their first seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[355,4570,4600,21,9,11,10,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-63715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-brooklyn-nets","9":"tag-jordi-fernandez","10":"tag-michael-porter-jr","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63715","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=63715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}