The Brooklyn Nets are already in a hole, and Friday night made it deeper.
After coming up just short in overtime in Boston earlier in the week, Brooklyn was looking to finally grab its first win of the season and build some momentum. Instead, the Nets were overwhelmed at home, falling 110-94 to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Cup opener.
This wasn’t just a loss. It was the kind of night that leaves a mark. Detroit, last season’s No. 1 seed, controlled the game for all 48 minutes, and Brooklyn never found a real answer.
That’s what makes this one sting more than the final score alone. The Nets have shown some fight against other teams with real expectations early on, but this looked a lot like the beating they took from Indiana a few days earlier.
Against a team like the Pistons, Brooklyn has to be close to perfect to have a shot. On Friday, it was nowhere near that level - maybe not even enough to beat the Sacramento Kings, the league’s only other winless team.
The trouble started with Brooklyn’s top duo. Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle have both opened the season well and seemed to be building some chemistry, but they had a rough night together. The two combined for 28 points on 8-of-22 shooting and also coughed it up six times.
Brooklyn hung around for a quarter, but that was about it. Detroit took a seven-point lead into halftime, then turned the screws in the third quarter and blew the game open. At one point, the Nets were down by as many as 30 on their own floor, looking every bit like a team projected to sit near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.
It’s still October, but the longer this skid goes on, the harder it gets to imagine Brooklyn climbing back into the postseason picture. Right now, the Nets are doing the opposite: making the climb steeper with every loss.
And the schedule isn’t offering much relief. Six of Brooklyn’s next seven games are on the road, which means the road to anything resembling a turnaround is about to get even tougher.
In Other News...
Nets Already Face A Bigger Problem Than Their 0-5 Start
The 0-5 start has already put the Nets in an early-season hole, but the bigger concern around the group is how quickly the frustration has started to show. Brooklyn has been dealing with team adversity and poor body language, and coach Jordi Fernandez made clear after the recent loss to Detroit that the group is in a fragile mental state. For a team trying to build any kind of identity, that can be just as damaging as the losses themselves.
Julius Randle and Michael Porter Jr. are supposed to be part of the stabilizing force in the locker room, the veterans who help keep the season from drifting further off course. But even that piece of the puzzle comes with uncertainty because of their contract situations, which leaves Brooklyn trying to steady itself while not knowing exactly how long its most experienced voices will be around. For now, the Nets are not just searching for a win, they are searching for cohesion. [Read more 🡒]
Nets Face Another Lineup Problem As Winless Start Keeps Dragging
The Nets are still trying to piece together a workable rotation as their winless start drags on, and the injury report keeps making that job harder. Brooklyn announced that guards Egor Demin and Mikel Brown Jr. will be unavailable for the upcoming game against the Indiana Pacers, while rookies Joshua Jefferson and Tyler Bilodeau, along with Ben Saraf and Grant Nelson, remain on G League assignments.
For a team already searching for stability, the absences leave Jordi Fernandez with more lineup shuffling than he would like this early in the season. Fernandez has already addressed Browns play and the adjustments Brooklyn has had to make around its available personnel, and now the Nets will have to navigate another night without two more guards in the mix. [Read more 🡒]
Nets Backcourt Shakeup Shows How Fernndez Plans To Fix The Offense
Jordi Fernndezs latest backcourt adjustment is a clear sign he is trying to steady Brooklyns offense by changing how the ball gets organized, not just who is on the floor. Nolan Traor got the first-unit nod and brought a different tempo to the group in his first start, finishing with 15 points while helping the offense look more connected even if the assist totals did not fully tell the story.
The move also hints at a larger plan for how Fernndez wants the Nets to function across both units. With the starting group still searching for a more reliable rhythm, the coach is also looking at rookie Mikel Brown Jr. to guide the second unit and keep the offense balanced when the rotations flip, a setup that could shape Brooklyns guard rotation for a while. [Read more 🡒]