NBA fines Nets as Brooklyn’s season continues to go downhill

NBA fines Nets as Brooklyn’s season continues to go downhill

The Nets be losing so we’re going to bring in Belo the New York Post Nets beat writer Brian Lewis is here but he’s here to spread love the Brooklyn way uh Happy New Year Brian Let’s uh we’re going to try and keep this thing as upbeat as possible when we’re talking

About this team obviously they’ve kind of been underachieving uh throughout the last couple weeks but we’ll start with Thursday’s news that broke that Brooklyn got hit with a $100,000 fine for violating the League’s player partici participation policy can you uh give us a little bit more details on the fine in the

Investigation sure well uh I guess for those that you know aren’t up on all things Nets let’s go back to the beginning uh last Wednesday uh the Nets sat Nick Claxton Spencer DWI Dorian finny Smith and cam Johnson all against the Bucks they sat him outright and then

They pulled male Bridges and cam Thomas and Royce O’Neal All in the first quarter all right the league opened investigation fairly quickly if not the next day if it wasn’t the it wasn’t Thursday then it was definitely by Friday morning um so we broke that news that the league was

Investigating them and was considering finding them as we all know yesterday the fine came down $100,000 this was less about the Nets per se and then it was about the league just making clear that these rules are going to be taken seriously and that you can’t flout these rules you can’t ignore

Them um and I will tell you organizationally the Nets know this was a bad look the whole thing um sitting the finding it’s embarrassing um and I will tell you organizationally they know that but that’s the situation that they’re in they’re moving forward um but I will say it’s not something

That after the fact they’re taking lightly they know what this looks like do you think this would have been bigger national news had it been the Lakers as opposed to the Nets who’ve been struggling oh yes anything listen anything the Lakers do is going to be magnified compared to what the Nets do

Okay that’s not even in question um and I wouldn’t even limit it to the Lakers if it was Golden State or if it was you know some other team that is a bigger National story all right let’s get into this team how they’ve been struggling in

Pro Sports we have X’s and O’s but there’s also the wise the Nets have lost five straight why haven’t the ex’s and O’s led to wins is it more of the players is it the X and O’s and when we talk about the players we can include a

A slumping cam Thomas in on that right well I mean I would say it’s all of the above yes cam Thomas is slumping yes he’s missed 20 straight shots which is it’s crazy to see because we’ve been spoiled at how good he is at making tough shots um so it’s shocking

To see him Miss 20 shots of of any caliber um the slump is really longer really I mean you’re talking about 10 of their last 11 but in this five game losing skid yeah I mean they listen they have the fourth worst off and the fourth worst

Defense that’s that’s hard to do right so it’s no shocking that they’ve got the worst net rating um in that span U there’s really no aspect that hasn’t been poor um but the clip note version is their offense is flawed and people are catching up to it this is a team

That is not going to be efficient from the floor so they have to shoot threes that’s the only way they can survive and it’s a make or Miss league right now those threes are not going in and people have figured out how to take those away right they’re not worried about the

Downhill Drive they’re not worried about the pick and roll they are worried about moving them off the line and contesting when they can’t so that’s a problem because the roster is what the roster is now you’re going to get back Lonnie Walker the fourth who’s one of their better offensive players cam eventually

Will shake out of this so I do think the offense will start to regress back to somewhere in the middle not as good as it was in the beginning of the Season not as bad as it is now but unless they start defending it’s not going to matter because ultimately that’s where they’re

Going to have to make their bones well you got a chance to talk to cam uh do you would you attribute the slump to the pressure then him feeling like he’s got to be the score no I I mean cam is very comfortable being the score if you give Cam the opportunity

He’s he’s fine living in that space of being a number one option he’s he’s fine with that I I would say he’s a young player uh they’re going to be ups and downs um he started to experience this a little earlier in the season when he had

To get used to being the number one guy on a game plan and by that I mean the number one guy on somebody else’s defensive game plan where he’s the first name on the board that was a new experience for him um but I’d say in a

Lot of these cases some of these shots I mean his shot profile is not bad his shot profile is I mean he always takes tough shots right but his shot profile is not one that are shots that he hasn’t made before he’s just a little bit off

He’s just missing he’s not being forced into shots that he doesn’t normally take he’s just in a slump so he’s got a chance to get out of that slump tonight uh the Nets are ninth in the East and they’re going up against the team that’s second in the west OKC

Is playing some great basketball right now can the Nets play spoiler and if they can how do they do that well I mean the Nets weren’t horrible in OKC the other day uh but for one they have to defend they cannot think that they’re going to just shoot

Their way out of this now to defend that means they’ve got to trust and that’s been an issue and by that I mean as you know listen when you’re defending helping the helper is a big deal right if I can’t rely on the guy over there to come rotate and help me

I’m going to be less likely to go over there and help over there because that makes me look better on film right that’s part of their issue as a matter of fact I’d say it’s a big chunk of their issue and it’s something that’s been missing now why

We’re sitting here this deep into the season and we’re still talking about trust issues that I can’t answer but that’s an issue and that’s one that they’re going to have to solve whether that gets solved tonight I don’t know but it’s one that they’re going to have to get solved

Before they win in any tangible real way Brian Lewis thanks for joining us anytime thanks for having me

The Post’s Nets beat writer Brian Lewis joins New York Post Sports anchor Brandon London to discuss the reasons behind Brooklyn’s rough stretch, as the team has lost ten of their last 12 games.

Lewis also gives details on the Nets recently being fined $100,000 for violating the NBA’s player participation policy by sitting almost all of their key players against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks, as well as whether the team’s struggles are more on the players or the coaching staff and front office.

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