Early in this NBA season, the Brooklyn Nets are proving to be not only one of the league’s biggest surprises, with a 5-6 record going into last night’s game at the Barclays Center versus the defending league champion Boston Celtics, but also one of its most exciting teams.
This is a year of evaluation and establishing a base for the future for the Nets with rookie head coach Jordi Fernandez at the helm, but the expectations Fernandez has for the team are evident: Play hard every game and compete to win. They continued to display that mindset on Monday night with a 107-105 road win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
A key part of the Nets’ solid play has been veteran point guard Dennis Schroder, who has been a steady floor general running the offense. The 31-year-old, now in his 11th season in the NBA, was averaging 19.5 points on 48% shooting and 6.2 assists before facing the Celtics. He has been instrumental in the ongoing development of young players such as Noah Clowney, who sparked the team’s win against the Pelicans. The 20-year-old second-year forward scored 15 points on five 3-pointers and grabbed seven rebounds in 20 minutes of action coming off the bench. Nets guard Cam Thomas, the team’s leading scorer at 24.5 points per game before last night, and who had a Nets high 17 versus the Pelicans, noted the 6-9 Clowney’s ability to stretch the floor. “He’s definitely a different weapon we have, just from being able to play the four (power forward) and the five (center), and being able to be that stretch four, stretch five that we could have in a second unit,” Thomas said.
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“It’s just really a great thing to see for us. It’s good to have that as another weapon because in games like this, where teams are trying to double-team and get the ball out of my hands a lot, we have a four- or five-man unit who can space out and knock it down.” If Clowney, who shot 36.4% from three as a rookie last season, can consistently knock down 3-pointers, he will become an increasingly valuable asset for the team. “I see him shoot every day and I know he is a good shooter,” Fernandez responded when asked if he was surprised by Clowney’s performance. “When I get mad at the guys is when they stop shooting, and one thing he’s done consistently is just continue to let it fly, and [that’s] how it works. You cannot control if it is going to go in. You can control if you take a good shot. He kept taking good shot after good shot …”
The Pelicans matchup also marked the eighth game in which Ben Simmons played this season. He has started six and had a strong showing in notching a team high 12 assists with six points and five rebounds. The 6-10 Simmons appeared in only 15 games last season and 42 in the 2022–2023 campaign due to back issues. Brooklyn will meet the Knicks in back-to-back games tomorrow and Sunday at Madison Square Garden before returning to the Barclays Center on Tuesday to host the Charlotte Hornets.