The Brooklyn Nets dropped their fifth game in the first six to open the 2022-23 season and head coach Steve Nash summed up their latest defeat – "a disaster."
The Nets fell to the Indiana Pacers, 125-116, on Saturday night. Pacers rookie Bennedict Mathurin scored a career-high 32 points, including six three-pointers, and Tyrese Haliburton dropped 26 points to add to Brooklyn’s misery to start the season.
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"It was a disaster," Nash said, via ESPN. "How else do you say it? I didn't see the will, didn't see the desire, or the connectivity necessary to get stops and get rebounds.... We just got to make a bigger commitment and it's got to mean more and we got to care more."
The team reportedly had a players’ only meeting after the loss and the locker room was closed off before the media was allowed in.
"It was a s----- night," Kevin Durant added. "Excuse my language, it was a bad night.... We're p-----. We enjoy basketball. We like to win, though, so of course when we lose the games it's going to be a somber mood in the locker room. But it will change once we start playing some good basketball. We got a lot of basketball to be played ahead of us."
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Ben Simmons said the players had an "honest" conversation about their play.
"We're in constant communication all the time," Durant said. "If it's a scheduled meeting or not, I think we all talk about what we need to do as a team every day. So regardless of if it was after a loss, or a meeting, we always have that. We're always in constant dialogue about what we need to do as a group, so I wouldn't say it was anything special."
Even with a star-studded roster, Brooklyn has managed to only defeat the Toronto Raptors this season. Since then, they’ve lost four straight. The defense has allowed 124.5 points per game during its current losing streak. They’ve allowed 122.8 points pre-game this season, which ranks 29th in the league, just ahead of the Detroit Pistons.
Brooklyn has another game against the Pacers on Monday night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
