Steve Nash pleased with Nets' start through first 11 games

ORLANDO, Fla. — As the Nets prepared to face the Magic Wednesday night at Amway Center, they were working on how to rebound from a disastrous fourth quarter Monday in Chicago that put an end to their five-game winning streak. The Bulls outscored the Nets 42-17 in the fourth and outscored them by 30 ipoints in the paint.

But as bad as that loss might have looked against an up-and-coming Eastern Conference contender, Nets coach Steve Nash remained positive about the 7-4 Nets’ early-season progress. At the shootaround Wednesday morning, Nash suggested fatigue in the second game of a back-to-back contributed to the Nets’ poor showing in Chicago.

"I don’t want to blame it all on that, but it looked to me like a tired group in the fourth quarter," Nash said. "We had a four-point lead a minute into the fourth and got beat by (23), so I just felt mental and physical fatigue set in.

"I have no complaints about being 7-3 in our first 10 games [prior to Chicago]. I know the analytics might have its questions, but I think the application, the effort, the competitive spirit and the connectivity were great. The team is engaged in what we’re trying to have them do at both ends of the floor.

"So I’m really proud of the way they’ve tried to come together and play both ends of the floor, and frankly, we’re a team that no one predicted would be a defensive team. But we’re going to have to win games with our defense a lot of times because we don’t have that offensive makeup as in prior seasons."

There are a couple of reasons for the change. The most obvious reason for the decline in firepower is the absence of Kyrie Irving, who is not eligible to play games in New York because he has not complied with the city's COVID vaccine mandate. The organization made a decision not to allow him to serve as a part-time player, so he must remain out until he either gets vaccinated or the mandate changes.

The Nets also are deeper in the frontcourt than they have been in the past because of the veterans they have added, and they have more players capable of scoring on the inside, especially LaMarcus Aldridge. So instead of playing "small ball" as they have done a significant amount of time in the past, they aren’t playing with quite the same pace now and they are relying more on mid-range shooting.

"The principles are the same," Nash said of his system. "It’s just that we didn’t have to necessarily teach and declare every little detail last year because we were scoring at a historic rate. This year, we have to teach and we have to be clear on how these pieces fit together and how best to help each other succeed.

"So that’s more of a project. I’m enjoying that process and our guys have been great at trying to respond to what we’re asking. So we had a rough fourth quarter, but other than that, we had a pretty good week."

As experienced and talented as the Nets may be, it still is a learning process when they are blending 10 new faces into a 17-man roster. But one of the top newcomers, Patty Mills, is convinced the offense will only get better deeper into the season.

"We are not going to work that out overnight or the first 10 games or so," Mills said. "That is the marathon part, being patient and understanding what we’ve got to do on a day-to-day basis. But our ability and potential to be explosive on the offensive end is still there. It’s just being able to get comfortable with each other and find spots."

By Greg Logan

Gregory.Logan@newsday.comGregLogan1

Greg Logan has worked for Newsday since 1982 covering a wide array of sports and events, currently including the Brooklyn Nets beat.