Nets are not an offensive juggernaut, but they're showing they always play hard

The adjectives, the descriptors, which Cam Johnson used over and over again to describe the current iteration of the Nets were not ones routinely associated with previous incarnations of the franchise.

Tough. Toughness.

It is indeed a new era. Or at the very least, the start of a new era.

“I think there's a grit,” Johnson said of the Nets following a late-morning practice Wednesday at the Hospital For Special Surgery Training Center. “We're not winning games because we're playing pretty basketball or because we're making shots and things are going our way. I think we're finding ways to win and finding ways to be tough and figured that part of the game out.”

In what was expected to be — and what still very well may happen — a season in which they contend for the first overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft, the Nets find themselves with a record of 4-4 after eight games.

And while all involved acknowledge that essentially one-tenth of the season is too small a sample size to be determinative of trends, the fact remains that the Nets have already beaten the Bucks and swept the season series against the Grizzlies.

Unlike the Kevin Durant-Kyrie Irving era, the 2024-25 Nets are not an offensive juggernaut that possesses the high-end player personnel to outscore defensive lapses and mistakes. The Nets’ 113.5 points per game is 14th in the league.

Not great. Not terrible. Solidly in the middle of the pack.

What they have shown to do well is play hard. The Nets are eighth in the NBA in charges drawn per game (0.50) and 12th in screen assists per game (9.3).

Neither are glamorous data points. But they are instructive as to how the Nets believe they must do in order to be successful.

“I think this year we're just coming in with no excuses,” Jalen Wilson said. “I think we just attack the situation and don't create any disadvantages when it comes to, like I said, being tired mentally, physically. We just come in and want to win and string games together.”

But is it sustainable? Can a team simply effort its way to a winning record by the end of the season?

Johnson believes it can.

“That toughness aspect and how we're trying to play is sustainable,” Johnson said. “And I don't think we're subject to the ebbs and flows of the games as much. Memphis was a hard-fought win, Chicago was a hard-fought win, and there have been some that haven't gone our way, but we've been able to turn around and respond each time."

In part because under first-year coach Jordi Fernandez, the Nets are attacking from the perimeter. The Nets are averaging 40.1 three-point attempts per game, which is seventh-most in the league. As is their 14.4 made threes per game average.

“Overall, the buy-in from our guys and what we're trying to do with our shot chart and shot selection, so far I'm happy,” Fernandez said when asked if he was satisfied with the quality of the three-pointers the Nets have been taking.

Notes & quotes: Are the Nets getting closer to being at full strength? That is somewhat of an open question. Fernandez said Day’Ron Sharpe (hamstring) and Noah Clowney (hip) are status quo, but he believes he will have an update on Trendon Watford (hamstring) Thursday.