Coach Jordi Fernandez lamented the Nets’ inability to put the ball in the basket after Monday’s loss at New York, writes Howie Kussoy of the New York Post. Brooklyn held its cross-town rivals to 103 points, which Fernandez said should be good enough to win on most nights, but the offense collapsed, producing a season-low 90 points while connecting on 3-of-16 shots in the fourth quarter with 11 points and five turnovers.
“I think it’s more about us not being organized, and then if you have empty possessions, you don’t run anything for anybody, like nobody’s in the right spot,” Fernandez told reporters. “You don’t touch the paint. You don’t move. You don’t reverse the ball, and you get either no shots or terrible shots. … Everybody’s got to do their jobs because whether we call a play or not, you got to run to your spots, and we didn’t do it enough times, and that’s the frustrating thing. When we do it, we get good results. When we don’t do it, we get bad results.”
Kussoy points out that the Nets made an effort to upgrade their offensive talent over the summer by trading for Julius Randle, signing Keon Ellis and Moritz Wagner and drafting Mikel Brown Jr. But the early returns have been discouraging, as the team ranks 29th in scoring (105.6), 28th in offensive rating, 29th in assist to turnover ratio (1.21), 28th in turnover percentage (18.3) and 28th in field goal percentage (41.7).
“Just gotta remain disciplined,” Randle said. “We know what we need to do … you can’t just put it on one person. It’s a team game. It’s five players out there, so we got to be better at communicating, understanding the moment, what’s going on. It’s all five of us. We all got to be better out there.”
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