Jan. 26, 2026, 4:58 p.m. ET

The Brooklyn Nets have been having the kind of January that no one saw coming given how they played in December, showing that they had the chance to better solid opponents. Brooklyn is recently coming off one of the worst losses in franchise history at the hands of the New York Knicks and now, one of their leaders is trying to get the team to wake up.

“I think that they were just the better team tonight, there wasn’t much to [it], they just they dominated us. They dominated us last game, they dominated us tonight,” forward Michael Porter Jr. said after Sunday’s 126-89 loss at the Los Angeles Clippers. Sunday was the second time in three games in which Brooklyn lost by at least 37 points and it seems like Porter is trying to nip this trend in the bud as soon as possible.

“We got to get back to competing every night. I think from the players to the guys on the bench to the coaches, we all just got to get back to just competing,” Porter continued while also taking some of the blame for his unusual performance. “I think that I could have definitely done a better job. I think our starting unit could have done a better job. It was just all around bad effort tonight.”

Porter ended the game with just nine points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field and 0-for-4 from behind the three-point range, one of the worst games that the potential All-Star has played this season. Porter wasn’t the only player who didn’t show up for the Nets on Sunday at the Clippers as he was one of five players who shot worse than 33.3% from the field and one of 11 players that had a negative plus/minus on the night.

As a team, Brooklyn finished the game shooting 34.0% from the floor and 21.0% from deep while allowing Los Angeles to shoot 56.0% and 48.0%, respectively. The Nets have four games left on their west-coast road trip and their schedule only gets tougher with the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets and Detroit Pistons being three of the four opponents left on the slate. Porter is trying to get himself and his teammates to meet the moment.

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