The Nets showed some signs of life through the past two weeks, starting with a victory over the Celtics in Boston on Nov. 21.
They’ve won games they were supposed to win and at least been competitive against better teams. As they head into Friday’s game in Dallas, the Nets have won three of their last four.
But in a scheduling quirk due to the vagaries of the NBA Cup, they haven’t played since Saturday’s win over New Orleans.
“The break is kind of tough because you get into a rhythm of playing every other day,” Nic Claxton said following Wednesday’s practice in Brooklyn.
They’ve tried to make the most of their time off, using it to practice with a young, inexperienced team.
Jordi Fernández said the key to the break in the schedule was in “taking care of their bodies and using the days to rest and get better… [and] work on different concepts.”
At 6-17, they are a bit more than a quarter of the way through the regular season.
“We’re 23 games in and we’re looking at the next 20 games,’’ Fernández said. “Can we sustain [it]? Can we get better? Then we look at the next 20. The process is the most important thing for us and the development of the group, not just one player.”
And things could get more interesting in Brooklyn and around the league. Starting Monday, players who signed with teams prior to the season can begin to be traded.
The Nets could well be involved in some of those moves, in part because they have the financial flexibility to take on salary, which they could do in exchange for assets like more young players or draft picks.
A year ago, they saw Dennis Schröder and Dorian Finney-Smith — among others — leave Brooklyn before Cam Johnson was traded over the summer.
“It’s like a reality TV show,’’ Claxton said. “It’s like that every year around this time. It’s about to start up.”
But Claxton, like Fernández, wants the attention to stay on the players who are still with them.
“You may hear your name in trade rumors and you see teammates come and go,’’ Claxton said. “But you’ve got to focus on who’s here and [let] management handle all that stuff and roll with it.”
Fernández added: “It’s that part of the year and we all have to deal with it. It’s not the most enjoyable part of the year, but we love our guys. We’re gonna keep focusing on working and getting better and competing. We cannot control anything on the outside, even though we know things may happen. … We’re not the ones thinking or talking [about trades]. We want work, we want accountability [and] we want competitiveness. That’s what we focus on.”
To that end, the Nets have played markedly better defense over the past few weeks after their ugly start to the season.
“All teams go through peaks and valleys and the season is so long,’’ Claxton said. “We have a lot of fresh faces, a lot of guys who haven’t seen any kind of NBA action [and] also a new core. We all had to figure it out and get on the same page with the coaches. It’s starting to happen, but we’ve got to keep building.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
