Jordi Fernández isn’t just trying to clean up the Nets’ mistakes. He’s trying to stop them from snowballing.
That was the thread running through Brooklyn’s 125-121 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday, a game in which one turnover or bad shot too often spilled into the next phase of the possession. Fernández said there were moments when a mistake led to complaining or visible frustration, and that kept the Nets from getting back on defense in time.
The issue, as he sees it, is less about avoiding errors altogether and more about what happens after they show up.
“You don’t play four quarters of perfect basketball,” Fernández said before Sunday’s game against the Indiana Pacers. “That’s why you have to learn how to accept your mistakes and how to move from them.”
Brooklyn’s comeback from a 22-point deficit made that point even clearer. The Nets poured in 41 points in the fourth quarter and pushed Cleveland to the edge, finding a looseness that had been harder to tap earlier in the night. Egor Dëmin was a major part of that stretch, scoring 15 of his 22 points in the fourth and saying the late-game situation helped him shoot with more freedom.
Now the challenge is to bring that same approach earlier.
“I think for me it’s going to be key, how can I go with that mindset from the jump, from the start of the game, and not just feeling like I’m free at the end of the game and being able to get those shots out,” Dëmin said.
Fernández said he has already seen some progress when he compares the opener in Charlotte with the Cleveland game. He pointed to less anxiety and more focus on actually playing the game.
The mistakes on Saturday, in his view, were mostly honest ones made while trying to execute. The effort was better, even if the details still need work.
What Brooklyn has to learn now is how fast it can reset.
A missed chance on offense still means somebody has to sprint back, pick up a driver, or help a teammate who’s already in trouble. If a player carries the disappointment from the last possession into the next one, the whole defense can end up paying for it.
That was part of why Cleveland scored 46 points in the paint. Fernández said late transition positioning and pick-and-roll coverage were problem areas, and he added that the players reviewed those mistakes on film Sunday and owned them.
The fix, though, has to happen on the floor in real time.
“When you think too much, you’re too slow,” Fernández said.
For Fernández, this wasn’t only about the frantic finish of a four-point loss. He believes Brooklyn could have changed the outcome with cleaner work in stretches much earlier in the game.
“I think we can find two possessions in the first quarter and the second and the third,” Fernández said. “And that’s the mindset we want to have, is how to play with the imperfection of the game.”
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