PHILADELPHIA — The Nets have somewhat overcome shaky shooting this preseason by being crisp and hard-working.
Wednesday is what happens when their effort and ballhandling take a night off.
The Nets suffered a 117-95 preseason loss to Philadelphia at Wells Fargo Center that had new coach Jordi Fernandez vexed, a performance that he said flat-out wasn’t good enough.
They faced a Philadelphia team playing without All-Stars Joel Embiid and Paul George.
And the Nets came in leading the preseason in fast break points and third in assist-to-turnover ratio, thanks to selfless ball movement.
But that had been with Ben Simmons playing alongside Dennis Schroder.
With Simmons out (a scheduled day off to manage his recovery from surgery), it left Schroder shouldering all the playmaking duties, and being found wanting with nine points just four assists and five of the Nets’ 20 turnovers.
“We weren’t strong with the ball, we didn’t move the ball. It’s fairly simple. We didn’t do what we were supposed to,” Noah Clowney said. “We turned the ball over, they leaked out, they got buckets off it. But I’m not gonna blame it on us missing guys. We gotta do better with the group we got.”
Worse yet, they didn’t get back in transition and saw the 76ers turn those miscues into 31 points.
A talent-starved team can’t afford that once the season starts.
“We went from two point guards to one; that showed in taking care of the ball. But the reality is our true point guard Dennis had five turnovers,” Fernandez said. “We cannot afford him to play like this, because he’s a really good playmaker, he’s a floor general, he does the right thing. So he has to be better.
“Obviously adding another point guard will help us. But the reality is 20 turnovers for 31 points is unacceptable. When turnovers happen you’ve still gotta keep playing. You’ve still got to get stops. And obviously in that second half, I feel like we didn’t play as hard as we could, like we’ve done the first two games. And that’s what I told the guys, is we have higher standards on how we play and how we compete. And that’s not the performance we want to have for sure.”
Cam Thomas had a team-high 17 points, but on inefficient 2-for-8 shooting from deep robbed of playmaking.
Cam Johnson tried to fill the Simmons role of facilitating out of the high post and on the elbows, handing out a team-high six assists with his 11 points.
But the need for a backup point guard was painfully clear with Killian Hayes still not having played this preseason.
Shake Milton had 13 points off the bench, but is a two-guard and had just three assists.
The Nets played without starting center Nic Claxton and backup Day’Ron Sharpe.
Brooklyn gave up a 21-6 run early, shooting just 2-for-12 during that dry spell to fall behind 28-16.
The Nets’ deficit swelled to 40-25 before they got their footing. They responded by reeling off 11 unanswered points, clawing within four.
But they got beaten up physically.
The spindly second-year pro Clowney got the start at center with Claxton, Sharpe and Simmons all sidelined, and bruising Andre Drummond not only powered over him one play but knocked him to the floor and taunted him with a “too small” gesture.
“Our ball pressure was not good enough. We got blown by a lot. We were not behind showing bodies,” Fernandez said. “We’ve just got to hold ourselves accountable to our standard.”
