After the shot clock passed on Tuesday night, bolstering yet another disappointing game for the Brooklyn Nets, coach Steve Nash begged his players to look inside and ask himself “what kind of team they want to be”.
“I don’t think we go out every day of our lives and sacrifice the time to be average at anything,” Kyrie Irving said after Brooklyn’s third straight loss. “And we look very average. And we have the talent that the eye test shows that we should dominate.”
Brooklyn has developed a pattern this season of playing incredibly hard – and often beating the teams over and over again – to the top of the standings, but losing to the bottom residents of the league. In fact, with the 122-111 defeat in Detroit on Tuesday, the Nets are now 7-11 against teams with a record of less than .500 – the most such losses in the league.
Jerami Grant tied his career high with 32 points for the Pistons. Irving, who played with a sprained index finger, finished with 27 points and seven assists. James Harden added 24 points and 12 assists.
Brooklyn remains without Kevin Durant, who is in the NBA’s coronavirus contact tracking protocols until at least Friday after being exposed to a team member who tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
Detroit jumped out to an early double-digit lead, controlling the game for almost the entire 48 minutes. During a first-quarter timeout, Harden appeared to have a lively conversation with DeAndre Jordan about the team’s defensive effort. Over the course of the match, Nash pulled Jordan aside several times.
“I don’t think they necessarily bully him,” Nash said. “It’s an emotional sport. We’re in the hole and then we get a little emotional.”
Jordan, who said he didn’t remember what Harden had said specifically, admitted he needed to be better defensively.
“I have to be better defensively with us,” Jordan said. “We all need to get better. But I’m just taking a little bit more ownership over that end of the ball because that’s something I love and a big part of why I think I’m here for us. are better, but I take a lot of that. “
Since the Nets traded for James Harden in mid-January, they’ve ranked last in defensive efficiency, according to ESPN Stats & Information. And while the Nets were able to narrow the Pistons’ lead to single digits, they could never get over the hump.
“A lot of teams compete against us very comfortably,” said Irving. “And that’s kind of the feeling for the rest of the game, that we’re catching up and that’s just not the way to play as a competitor, it’s always down.”
‘We just have to turn that corner. And we haven’t done it yet, but we will. And I’m telling you the competition will be noticed when that happens. ‘