Feb. 23, 2026, 2:48 p.m. ET

The Brooklyn Nets looked like they were on their way to get their first win for the first time in over two weeks when they amassed an 11-point lead in Sunday’s 115-104 loss at the Atlanta Hawks. Brooklyn went on to be on the wrong end of a 24-2 run over the final eight minutes of the game and understandably so, everyone on the team was disappointed.

“You said it, [the] 18-0 run. [It’s] unacceptable to go into a game that we played well, a very good brand of basketball, connected, defending, taking the lead as a team, the first and the second group,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said during his postgame interview. After earning a 102-91 lead with 8:01 left in the fourth quarter, Brooklyn went on to finish the final eight minutes shooting just 1-of-15 from the field and turned the ball over five times.

“We just didn’t execute down the stretch. Then we had five turnovers in the last five minutes. Our first group, we just got to be better and tip [the] hat off to the second group for getting us the lead,” Center Nic Claxton said. Veteran forward Terance Mann said the Hawks are “just a team with experience over there, you could tell those guys have had some experience. They knew exactly how to execute down the stretch, and we’re still learning.”

Claxton, who finished the game with 15 points, eight rebounds, and five assists after missing the past three games due to hip and ankle injuries, has been around the Nets for his entire seven-year career. Mann, who came to the team this season after being acquired via trade from Atlanta, has been on teams of various qualities, but this season in Brooklyn is tough for everyone due to the nature of the rebuild.

Fernandez, in the midst of his second season as the head coach of the Nets, has been having to find a way to put a winning product on the floor while developing the five rookies on the roster. When it comes to the fourth-quarter collapse on Sunday in Atlanta, the Nets were trying to do both with Egor Demin and Nolan Traore on the floor in the clutch, but it seems that Brooklyn has a lot to work on before this season concludes.

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