Nets coach, star players must be on same page
IF JACQUE Vaughn’s messaging is still getting through like he claims, it begs the question of whether the message is good enough. Because the results sure aren’t.
Brooklyn is going right past dire into disaster.
If the Nets have learned anything from their Big 3 breakup — watching a divorce play out on a national spotlight — it’s that a team has to be on the same page with their best player(s). It’s the first rule of the NBA club.
Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden all demanded trades, the latter catching Brooklyn flatfooted after previously denying any discontent. With Mikal Bridges being the centerpiece they got back for Durant, the Nets had better not just listen to him, but actually hear what the face of their franchise is saying.
Brooklyn heads into the All-Star break stinging from a 50-point loss at Boston. It was the kind of capitulation that requires honest self-evaluation about what’s gone wrong — not just on a random Wednesday in February, but the entire season.
“Yeah, you’ve got to learn and fix the issue; that’s pretty much what it is. You can’t just let this one go and think ‘Oh, let it drop.’ No,’’ Bridges said. “Yeah, maybe if you lost towards the end, but you got beat by 50. It’s not just, ‘Let it go.’ A lot of s--- is not right, and you’ve got to fix it.”
A two-time NCAA champ at Villanova, Bridges helped Phoenix reach the NBA Finals in 2021 and earn the league’s best record in 2022. He knows winning habits, and the difference between patience and denial, sticking one’s head in the sand. And ostrich time is over. It’s important for the Nets to stay in sync with Bridges, as well as Nic Claxton — their next-best player, and an unrestricted free agent.
“It’s been disappointing,” Claxton said. “The season has been pretty disappointing, if we’re just being honest.”
One player’s description of Thursday’s loss was unprintable, but started with an ‘F.’ But while Vaughn is coming under increasing fire from the fans, both he and Bridges insist the players haven’t tuned him out.
“I think it’s far from that,” Vaughn said when asked by The Post. “We’ve got [Cam Johnson], has never played with Dennis Schröder, and it goes down the line. Day’Ron [Sharpe] just being back . ... Now there’s got to be a level of commitment we have to get things sped up, because these guys haven’t played together.’’
Bridges agreed that the players followed the game plan in Boston. But there are increasing questions around the league whether those game plans are sufficient.
“Whatever the game plan we had out there, we just executed it as we should; but it’s difficult,” Bridges said. “It’s tough just the scheme, just being in mismatches a lot, switching everything. And then offensively, it’s tough again, because a guy like Ben [Simmons] who plays and is not here, it’s a different dynamic when he has it.
“And even when we have Ben, it’s not really a super offense we’re running; he gets it, goes and we play off him and guys back up so he can dribble handoff. But we don’t have him out here, so we can’t play like that.”
Back woes have limited Simmons to just a dozen games this season. Brooklyn is a respectable .500 when he plays but a sad 15-27 without him.
“You can’t just run around like a chicken with your head cut off,” Bridges said.
“It’s definitely a totally different game for everybody when he’s out there,” Claxton said. “We’re playing fast, he’s getting guys open looks in transition.”
The Nets see their pace and open 3-point looks jump when Simmons is on the court, and their effective field goal percentage vault from .534 to .554. His impact is enough that they need separate game plans, with and without.
“For sure. It’s like having — obviously it’s extreme, but say you’ve got Philly with Joel [Embiid]. When he’s not playing, you don’t play the same style. So we’ve just got to know how we play with that,” Bridges said.
“We’ve got to know what we’re doing. We’ve got to come as a team, as coaches and figure out a game plan.”
One their best players are on the same page with.