Jan. 18, 2026, 11:30 p.m. ET

The Brooklyn Nets have had a rough start to 2026 as their performance on the defensive end of the floor and in the rebounding phase of the game has slipped tremendously. Brooklyn looked like it was turning a corner in Friday’s 112-109 win against the Chicago Bulls, but Sunday’s loss at Chicago showed that the team still has to figure out how to get out of its own way.

“It was lacking the defense, especially in the first half. You see it right there. If my math is correct, there’s so many points in the first half, that’s not good enough,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said after Sunday’s 124-102 loss at the Bulls. To Fernandez’s point about his team’s lack of defense, Brooklyn allowed Chicago to score 70 points in the first half on 59.6% shooting from the field and 60.0% from three-point land.

“I don’t think it was good either in the second, but I just don’t think we played hard consistently. We tried at times, and our purpose was not there,” Fernandez continued. “That’s the battle that we need to fight first is do everything, as hard as you can, to the best of your abilities, and then put your mind into what you’re trying to do, and everything has to be done with purpose.”

The Nets fell behind by as many as 22 points in the first half due to the lack of urgency on the defensive end of the floor despite the fact that Brooklyn shot a respectable 46.7% from the floor without the services of forward Michael Porter Jr. However, it was clear on multiple offensive possessions that Brooklyn didn’t have an easy way of creating offense without Porter in the game to be able to draw defensive attention or hit the tough shots when the shot clock is close to expiring.

While most of the team stats for both squads are fairly-close, the first quarter showed that Brooklyn wasn’t ready to play on the first night of a back-to-back as they lost the first quarter 39-22. One could argue that Sunday was a great shooting game for the entire Bulls team as a whole, but Fernandez has seen his play harder, evidenced by him beginning the second half with just center Nic Claxton as the only starter on the floor.

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