CHICAGO — The accidents are mounting, as are the losses.
The decimated Nets dropped their third straight sport Monday night time, falling to the Bulls 128-102 earlier than 19,131 at United Middle.
The skid matched the Nets’ worst of the season.
Primarily so did their harm record, lacking eight gamers — together with starters Cam Thomas, Dorian Finney-Smith, Ben Simmons and now Cam Johnson, the latter a late scratch because of a sprained left ankle.
Rookie head coach Jordi Fernandez has been compelled to shuffle and reshuffle his lineup, however by no means greater than Monday on the tail finish of a back-to-back.
No quantity of shuffle was going to assist the hand he was dealt.
“Well, right now we’re in a situation where we have new lineups almost every game,” Fernandez stated. “These sort of accidents, particularly ones that you simply can’t management, the ankles or the knees, that simply compelled us to have the following man mentality, which these days I feel we’ve been aggressive. We’ve performed an excellent crew the final two video games.
“We couldn’t get the win [Sunday]. But last game, I was very proud of the guys after watching the film; the fight, the competitiveness. Still some things we could have done better, especially offensively, but we were facing one of the biggest teams, physical size, all that. So obviously, we’re watching how could we have done things differently. But very proud of the guys.”
The Nets (9-13) weren’t dealing with a very good crew on Monday. However what’s left of them — already dedicated to a rebuild — actually wouldn’t match that description both.
Dennis Schroder and Nic Claxton have been the one common starters accessible, and Fernandez handed Keon Johnson his first begin as a Internet alongside Jaylen Martin and Jalen Wilson.
It was the eighth straight sport they’d used a special beginning 5, and even a stellar night time from Schroder couldn’t stop the blowout.
Neither may huge man Day’Ron Sharpe, coming back from a hamstring harm to make his season debut .
Schroder tallied 16 factors, 10 assists and no turnovers, and second-year guard Dariq Whitehead — who primarily misplaced his rookie marketing campaign to accidents — had an eye-opening night time.
In simply his fifth NBA sport, he had 18 factors on 6-for-10 from deep. At 20 years and 123 days outdated, he was simply three days older than Clowney to be the youngest participant in franchise historical past with not less than 5 3-pointers.
However the Nets allowed 52.2 p.c from the sphere in a sport that acquired out of hand early. Clinging to a tenuous 42-37 second-quarter lead after a 3-pointer from Shake Milton (14 factors, six rebounds), the Nets surrendered an prolonged 28-10 run that spanned the half.
By the point veteran heart Nikola Vucevic (21 factors, 10 rebounds) capped the run with a 3-pointer off a Josh Giddey feed, the Nets discovered themselves down 65-52 with 10:18 left within the third quarter.
The remainder was rubbish time. The deficit swelled to 105-80 on a Giddey jumper with 8:44 to play, and the threadbare Nets didn’t have a run left in them.
“We’re still the same team, and we’re going to do what we do,” stated Fernandez. “Clearly, we now have groups with gamers in several roles. As an illustration, we’re lacking Cam Thomas, who’s been scoring very effectively. However then one or two different guys will have the ability to play.
“Are they going to be Cam Thomas? No. But we’ll still pressure the ball. We’ll still be active to get deflections. We’ll still try to run to our spots. will still cut through the paint, reverse the ball, try to get to the right shots. So one way or the other, still play with our identity, play extremely hard.”
