PORTLAND — The Nets have their eyes on the prize money.
It's just that the players' day-to-day compensation is different from the big-picture compensation the front office will receive in the future.
The Nets may be struggling — OK, so is Brooklyn — but rest assured the players and coaches are out to win. They are fighting for every victory.
But they haven't done enough, trailing a season-worst five-game losing streak into Tuesday night's game against lottery rival Portland.
“We have to compete,” Ben Simmons said of the Trail Blazers game. “We can't go in there. We know this is a rebuilding kind of situation, but we have to go out there the way we want to win, regardless of what the front office expects. No.
“We must [fight]. That's just a personal thing. I want to win and I want to compete. The same goes for the coaches. So we have to show up and compete. ”
The Nets played Utah on Sunday night and lost 112-111 in overtime. They scored the final six points of regulation to force an overtime stanza and took the lead before giving up the winning drive with 6.4 seconds left.
Before the game, injured veteran Cam Johnson tried to lift spirits in the locker room, telling his teammates he was confident in starting the winning streak. And after the loss, the players commiserated about how costly it was not to commit even one of the fouls they had to give.
“I think it's a matter of detail,” Simmons said. “It's hard to win games in the NBA. So you have to be detailed and consistent. You have to be all quarters. You can't just show up whenever you want.”
The Nets enter Tuesday's game with just 13 wins and 26 losses, the sixth-worst record in the NBA and the sixth-best odds of winning the lottery. They sit just a half-game behind the Trail Blazers and sit in seventh place in the lottery standings.
The difference between No. 6 and No. 7 reduces a team's chance of getting a top-four pick from 37.2% to 32.0%, and the overall top pick from 9% to 7.5%.
That's why Tuesday's game is so important.
“We have to have short-term memory,” center Nick Claxton said. “You know, it’s the NBA, we’re playing Portland next, so we’ve got to stay positive and try to win.
“We keep losing and everyone is tired of losing. … We need to improve across the board.”
This is a testing part of the season for tanks. That can frustrate players who are trying to win and burden coaches who are trying to build a positive culture.
Let's take a look at each team's past nine contests. The Trail Blazers have won four championships, while Brooklyn has only won once. They will also be without leading scorers Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford, and possibly Johnson and D'Angelo Russell as well.
“I think it's an opportunity, and the NBA gives you a lot of opportunities in different ways,” coach Jordi Fernandez said. “I always tell my players that whether you're up or down, it's a good opportunity to play late in the game. For example, if you're 20 places up, you're 30 If you're down 30 points, you want to finish 20th. And you want to see them fight and compete in that moment.
“Games like [these]there are men. You may only have a few minutes, or you may be able to take more shots. Will this happen in the future? you don't know But you can only control what you can control. So now we have players. Someone has to take a few minutes. Someone has to take the shot. Someone has to play defense. Someone has to pass the ball.
“So all of those things are important. Someone has to keep the group together like Cam Johnson. He's not playing right now, so who's going to play? Those things are important to us. .”
