Earlier than their journey to San Diego for the second half of coaching camp, the Nets held what Cam Johnson referred to as a “chippy” scrimmage Thursday to simulate an actual sport six days forward of their first preseason sport in opposition to the Clippers.
The workforce was cut up into two — one led by assistant coach Steve Hetzel and the opposite by fellow assistant coach Juwan Howard — and every workforce had analytics personnel and an athletic coach throughout three 12-minute durations.
“Yeah, it was tremendous enjoyable,” Ziaire Williams stated after follow at HSS Coaching Middle. “I haven’t actually competed like that in an actual setting in a few months. … Guys had been flying round, speaking smack, the whole lot was nice.”
Johnson stated: “Individuals had been all around the floor, diving for the ball, pushing one another, possibly some elbows, possibly some knees, possibly some journeys, however it was good.”
Williams stated he was positioned on a workforce with Ben Simmons, Trendon Watford, Amari Bailey, Day’Ron Sharpe, Killian Hayes and Johnson. Nonetheless, there was no which means behind the workforce placements, in accordance with Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez. The groupings weren’t a sign of starters, bench or rotation items. That may begin to come extra into view in San Diego from Saturday by Monday.
This was the primary day to really feel game-like to the Nets after two days of managed contacts together with stop-and-go play eventualities.
The scrimmage led to a tie, which was Fernandez’s choice, however it was not nicely acquired by the gamers.
“We didn’t like that …” Johnson stated. “Neither workforce preferred that.”
Sitting in the course of all of it was Fernandez, who was inspired by what he noticed from his gamers, particularly their degree of conditioning heading to San Diego, which has been an enormous focus for the coach.
“It was extraordinarily aggressive,” Fernandez stated. “We scrimmaged for 3 quarters and the blokes introduced it. The communication on the court docket, the hassle to make profitable performs. It was very shut, very aggressive, and that’s what we need to see. [We’ll] use the movie tomorrow and have a non-contact day as a result of we simply labored actually exhausting for 3 days. … I’m pleased with how issues are going.”
