PHILADELPHIA — For years, the one ball motion folks noticed in Brooklyn was up and down, as Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving dribbled it.
And that made sense, attempting to journey two of historical past’s biggest isolation gamers to victory.
However each are lengthy gone, together with their prolific scoring and any hope of Nets competition.
Now Brooklyn is rebuilding, having to get again to fundamentals and develop good habits.
And one of many non-negotiable ones that rookie coach Jordi Fernandez has been harping on is ball motion, swinging it round.
The early returns had been promising coming into Wednesday’s preseason sport at Philadelphia.
“Yeah, our shot high quality has been good,” Fernandez mentioned. “And that goes with not simply ball motion, but in addition physique motion. Guys have been energetic. They share the ball. And the ball’s received power. And if you cross that ball, everyone feeds out of that power. And that’s how we’ve performed very properly, very quick.
“I do know by possessions for those who have a look at the variety of the overall possessions, we’re sort of sluggish; these are the uncooked numbers. However for those who look [in the] half-court … our variety of passes, our reducing could be very excessive. In order that signifies that we’re transferring so much. We’re sharing the basketball. So I’m glad. That creates high-quality pictures. And we’ve been fairly good attending to the free-throw line. … To this point, very proud of the buy-in from our guys.”
The Nets went into Wednesday’s sport in Philadelphia first within the preseason in fast-break factors after rating simply twenty first final season.
They got here in third in assist-to-turnover ratio, after being simply nineteenth in 2023-24.
If there’s a play that epitomizes the complementary basketball that Fernandez needs, it was Cam Thomas protection resulting in a Dorian Finney-Smith 3-pointer in Monday’s win the place all 5 Nets touched the ball.
“Coach needs to maneuver the ball facet to facet, and that’s what we did on that play, simply looking for the very best out there shot. And that was a kind of performs,” Finney-Smith mentioned. “We received a dunk off a play similar to that, simply with everyone touching it.
“The ball offers power, and coach talks about that. When the ball touches you, it offers you this power. Even for those who’re drained, [when] you get the ball, you get power. So it was a kind of performs. And you may see the workforce, they actually loved that play as a result of everyone touched it. And it went in on prime of that.”
Thomas has been scrutinized for inconsistent protection all through his profession, however made modest enhancements final season.
And within the early levels of camp and this preseason, he appears to be like to be taking extra optimistic steps.
With Brooklyn main Washington, 59-47, with 10:34 left within the third quarter on Monday, Thomas learn a cross from Kyle Kuzma and picked it off.
Then on the opposite finish, each single Web touched the ball earlier than a superbly executed 3-pointer.
Thomas pushed it as much as Cam Johnson on the arc, and the wing handed to Ziaire Williams.
The newcomer attacked the rim and collapsed the protection, kicking out to Dennis Schroder.
However reasonably than taking the nook 3-pointer, the purpose guard rapidly swung the ball to Finney-Smith for a wide-open 3-pointer — and a 15-point lead that Brooklyn simply constructed on all through the remainder of the evening.
That’s what Fernandez hoped to see Wednesday to get appears to be like towards the 76ers, and what he’ll must see in the course of the season.
“The ball has power. Everyone touches the ball. Everyone’s happier,” Fernandez mentioned earlier in camp. “We have to share that power. So we’ve been enjoying a sure method, and that method is sharing the basketball, being extra unpredictable, tougher to protect. Doing that by means of Nic [Claxton] can actually assist us offensively.”
