Brooklyn Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez knew what he was up against heading into the 2025-26 season given that the Nets fully embraced their rebuild by selecting five rookies. Brooklyn also indicated that the future is important with some of the moves that the team made in the offseason, but Fernandez is still calling on his players to play the way he wants them to.

“Obviously, the energy that we’ve had at times, I need consistency and urgency and that’s got to be something that we cannot decide [if] we’re doing it or not,” Fernandez said following Monday’s 137-109 blowout loss to Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets. Monday marked the fourth-straight game in which Brooklyn fell behind in a major way, but falling behind by as many as 33 points was not something that Fernandez wanted to see on the floor.

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“You go into the second half and they score 16 points off our turnovers and we give up 14 free throws in one quarter, [the] third quarter,” Fernandez continued. “We won two quarters, we lost two quarters, and it’s a matter of who we want to be right? Giving up 42 [points in the first quarter] to start, It’s not great. It’s just unacceptable to take an NBA game for granted.”

The Nets came into Monday’s game against the Rockets having fell behind by 22 points to the Charlotte Hornets, 25 points to the Cleveland Cavaliers, and 26 points to the San Antonio Spurs to begin the season. More to the point, Brooklyn has been unable to keep up with its opponent for one quarter and once that happens, the lead balloons to whatever figure it gets to that puts the Nets in a hole that’s too deep to climb out of without supreme effort.

As Fernandez and guard Cam Thomas have alluded to, the first quarter seems to be where the Nets have been experiencing their deficits due to a number of factors with the defense being the biggest culprit. Per Team Rankings, Brooklyn averages 26.0 points scored in the first quarter per game (ranks 28th in the NBA heading into Tuesday’s slate of games), but has also allowed their opponents to score an average of 36.3 points (dead last) in the same frame per game.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets’ Jordi Fernandez wants more consistent energy from his players