{"id":559476,"date":"2026-01-25T07:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559476\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T07:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T07:37:22","slug":"nets-losing-ways-carrying-into-road-trip-that-could-help-tanking-cause-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/559476\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets\u2019 losing ways carrying into road trip that could help tanking cause"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now, this is how you tank.<\/p>\n

After the Nets won three straight games, and four of five, in late December, running the risk of blowing the front office\u2019s plan to take advantage of their June draft pick, they\u2019re well on their way to falling back down the standings.<\/p>\n

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They\u2019ve dropped four in a row, nine of their past 10 and are 2-12 since that three-game winning streak.<\/p>\n

\"Nets<\/p>\n

Nets head coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez taking to guard Egor D\u0451min in the third quarter of a recent game. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

And it won\u2019t get any easier for a team that has its own first-round pick this season, but sent next year\u2019s first-rounder to Houston.<\/p>\n

Their next five games are on the road, and four of them are against potential playoff teams.<\/p>\n

First, they visit the red-hot Clippers in Los Angeles on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Clippers, run by ex-Nets head coach Lawrence Frank \u2014 now the president of operations in Los Angeles \u2014 have shaken off a slow start and won seven of their last eight games to get back into playoff contention.<\/p>\n

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After that come games at Phoenix, Denver, beatable Utah and then Detroit.<\/p>\n

At that point, they will be just four days away from the Feb. 5 trade deadline and could look to move some of their veteran players, notably Michael Porter Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

The seventh-year forward has played well throughout his first season in Brooklyn, but as the losing mounts, it\u2019s fair to wonder what kind of impact it will have on the team.<\/p>\n

The Nets responded well Friday against Boston <\/a>after Wednesday\u2019s historic 54-point loss to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

But they still blew a lead in overtime and ended up losing \u2026 again.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Porter \u2014 who had his best game in weeks against the Celtics \u2014 was asked about the team\u2019s fight in taking Boston into double overtime.<\/p>\n

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He didn\u2019t want to hear it.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Porter Jr. shoots over Sam Hauser during the fourth quarter of the Nets\u2019 double overtime loss to the Celtics on Jan. 23, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost,\u2019\u2019 Porter said. \u201cThat\u2019s all I really care about. I don\u2019t care about [any] fight, personally. Obviously, it was a better performance collectively than last game, but we still lost. So it was a game we should have won. We\u2019ve lost too many games this year that come down to the wire like this.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

With the latest defeat, the Nets remained in fifth position in the draft order.<\/p>\n

As The Post\u2019s Brian Lewis noted recently, \u201cFront offices tank, not players and coaches. [Head coach Jordi] Fern\u00e1ndez and his charges are trying to build winning habits, or at the very least, not develop bad ones in defeat.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

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Porter said the team was \u201cdiscombobulated\u201d on defense when Boston\u2019s Hugo Gonz\u00e1lez hit a game-tying 3-pointer as the clock ran down in the first overtime on Friday.<\/p>\n

Nic Claxton said he was \u201cconfused\u201d about the play and would have to look at the tape to find out how Gonzalez got so open for the shot.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that\u2019s to be expected for a young team against a squad that has championship experience.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a fine line between trying to improve your chances in the draft lottery and running the risk of becoming overwhelmed by the defeats.<\/p>\n

The Nets surprised many by winning 26 games last year and then were victims of some poor luck when they slipped to the eighth pick in the 2025 draft, after finishing with the sixth-worst record.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve got a lot riding on the next few months, even if it might not be pretty to watch.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Additional reporting by Brian Lewis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, this is how you tank. After the Nets won three straight games, and four of five, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,45,670,247,3803,46,14200,559,301,296,292,3528,248,304,4902,251,562,6,671,2728,2080],"class_list":["post-559476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn-nets","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklynnets","tag-celtics","tag-charles-wenzelberg","tag-clippers","tag-denver","tag-detroit","tag-houston","tag-hugo-gonzalez","tag-jordi-fernandez","tag-knicks","tag-lawrence-frank","tag-los-angeles","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nba","tag-nets","tag-nic-claxton","tag-sam-hauser"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115954598351628807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559476","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=559476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}