Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez didn\u2019t try to dress it up as a chess move.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t chasing matchups or searching for the ideal combination of players. The Nets<\/a> head coach went with a different starting group to open the second half of Sunday\u2019s 124-102 loss to the Chicago Bulls<\/a> because he wanted a response, and he wasn\u2019t getting one.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I answered yesterday after the game, that it was me trying to find a reaction from the group,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cThat was the message. It\u2019s not like you\u2019re not going to play. It\u2019s just like we need to find a reaction here.\u201d<\/p>\n That reaction is what the Nets were chasing as they returned to Barclays Center for Monday\u2019s matchup with the Phoenix Suns, a quick turnaround that left little time to sit with Sunday\u2019s struggles. Brooklyn entered the night at 12-28, still searching for consistency in a season that has been defined as much by effort and execution as it has by injury management and lineup shuffling.<\/p>\n Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s decision to open the second half in Chicago with a different unit wasn\u2019t necessarily about punishment. It was about trying to manufacture urgency on the fly and reinforcing what he\u2019s been telling his team since training camp. The rotation is flexible. Minutes are earned. And if the energy isn\u2019t there, he\u2019s going to go searching for it, even if that means flipping the script at halftime.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m rewarding the group that I felt played well,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cThen after watching the film, I felt pretty much the same way. Then, it didn\u2019t work out overall for the game. We didn\u2019t play hard enough, and we got outplayed right there. We tried at times. But, in the NBA, it has to be a complete effort for all 48 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the part that matters going forward. The Nets can live with missed shots. They can live with a bad stretch. Fern\u00e1ndez has shown he\u2019s willing to play young guys through rough patches, as long as they stay aggressive and connected. What he won\u2019t tolerate is drifting, especially on the defensive end where possessions get decided by effort, communication and physicality.<\/p>\n The lineup change was essentially an in-game reminder that the floor is always open for someone to impact the game in ways that don\u2019t show up in the box score. That\u2019s why Cam Thomas and Nic Claxton stayed involved, why Nolan Traore got another opportunity, why Tyrese Martin and Jalen Wilson were asked to bring something different to the table.<\/p>\n Fern\u00e1ndez wasn\u2019t searching for a perfect five. He was searching for a pulse. And even though Sunday\u2019s platoon swap didn\u2019t change the outcome, it clarified where Brooklyn is right now.<\/p>\n The second-year head coach isn\u2019t asking for mistake-free basketball. He\u2019s asking for a baseline, the kind of consistent effort and focus that travels. If Sunday was a reminder of how quickly things can unravel when those standards slip, Monday was a chance for the Nets to show they\u2019ve heard him.<\/p>\n \u201cConcentration has to be there again for 48 minutes,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cIt was not a game that I was very happy with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez didn\u2019t try to dress it up as a chess move. He wasn\u2019t chasing matchups or searching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,248,6,671],"class_list":{"0":"post-548056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-chicagobulls","13":"tag-jordi-fernandez","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115925248713989790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}