It’s not as if the Nets have been unbeatable in Brooklyn, where they are 2-1 this season, but they haven’t been able to buy a win away from Barclays Center, going 0-3 on the road so far. So, as they get ready to embark on a West Coast swing, the mantra was simple, if not easy: Just win. By any means necessary.
“Just taking care of, being able to play Brooklyn basketball on this trip [would be a success]. We’ve got to find a way to win on the road,’’ coach Jason Kidd said.
“Some wins. That’d be nice,’’ point guard Deron Williams said. “It’s a good time to get some wins. … We definitely need a road win. But no matter what we’re doing right now we need some wins. We’re 2-4 right now, we need some wins desperately.’’
The Nets face Sacramento on Wednesday night at Sleep Train Arena, before tough trips to Phoenix to face the surprising Suns and Los Angeles, to take on the Clippers. Those are the kind of young, athletic teams that give the aging Nets fits.
Joe Johnson didn’t try to hide the importance of breaking the road malaise.
“It’s vital, considering the fact we just came off two tough losses, man, and we’re still trying to fine-tune everything, guys still trying to get familiar with one another,’’ Johnson said. “This is a chance for us to kind of go out on the road man and try to put things together.’’
The only teams in the NBA with worse road records are the 0-4 Magic and the Jazz and the Cavaliers, who are each 0-5. To underscore just how poor the Nets have been away from Brooklyn, they lost their season-opener 98-94 to the Cavaliers in Cleveland and lost 107-86 in Orlando to the Magic on Nov. 3.
The struggles are shocking for a Nets team that had won a team-record 23 road games last season, its first-ever winning road mark in the NBA. Johnson initially insisted it isn’t inherently harder to win away from home, but he admitted the Nets haven’t maintained emotion for four quarters.
“No, it’s not more difficult. I mean, yeah, on the road all you’ve got is your teammates and your coaches, no fans to be that sixth man, or to help you, so to speak. So we do have to find something to amp us up or get us hyped for the game,’’ Johnson said. “I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job at times, but like I say, we always have a quarter that kind of hurts us.’’
Invariably, that quarter has been the third. They won both games in which they outscored their foes in the third, but are winless in the four in which they did not. At Cleveland, at Orlando, in Washington against the Wizards and against the Pacers, they were outscored in the third quarters by a total of 32 points.
“It’s just coming out being more focused and determined,’’ said Johnson. “We’ll put together a good first quarter, second quarter. But it seems as though we always have that one quarter that bites us, and now we’re back playing catch up. Now we have to fine tune and put together four solid quarters of good basketball.
“It’s basically just paying more attention to detail, just coming out a little bit more focused and getting a good stretch and a good warm-up at halftime. Some guys may have a tendency to relax at halftime. … It takes a little while for us to get going in the third quarter. But we’ll get that down.’’