Nets coach Jordi Fernandez wants his team to study Celtics, learn what it takes to be champions

BOSTON — Wrestling legend Ric Flair once said to be the man, you have to beat the man. For Nets coach Jordi Fernandez, half of that is true.

To be a great team doesn’t mean just beating them. It’s studying them. Add your own twist to what’s given them success.

Friday night’s game against the Celtics isn’t just revisiting the site of last season’s 50-point blowout. It’s the Nets getting another reminder of what Fernandez wants them to ultimately be. A team that wears you down with intense, high-pressure defense.

Twice, this season, he’s shared his admiration for how the defending NBA champions play.

“If you go to the playoffs or you watch the playoffs, that’s what they do,” Fernandez said Oct. 27 about playoff teams defending aggressively. "If you watch the Orlando Magic, that’s what they do. If you watch the Boston Celtics, that’s what they do. So why do we want to have high standards? And why don’t you look at the good teams and try to do the same things.”

Five days later, he praised the Celtics again in when asked about improving the Nets’ paint defense.

“We know that all these high-level defensive teams, playoff teams, Orlando, Celtics, Minnesota, they're very good in pressuring the ball and very physical,” Fernandez said last week. “It's a process. It's not like in one day, you'll become those type of teams. You have to go through it.”

Fernandez reiterated Friday pregame that he’s not copying the Celtics but it’s just respecting what they’ve done to be a championship team. Still, with the Nets leaning into being better defensively it’s not hard to see the Celtics as a level to aspire to.

The Nets have started 4-4 but there’s still growing pains adjusting to what Fernandez wants. Friday being the first game of a back-to-back reminds the Nets they've lost their previous starts of back-to-backs by not being able to close games out.

Against the Nuggets, they gave back a 17-point first half lead and lost in overtime. With the Pistons, they scored just 35 points in the second half and shot 2-for-15 on threes.

It’s something they’re aware of ahead of their most difficult back-to-back this early season with the Celtics Friday and Cavaliers Saturday.

“I think our main goal going into back-to-backs is obviously to win the first one, but win two in a row and string two, three in a row. That's always our goal,” Jalen Wilson said. “Everyone in the league has to do back-to-backs. So it's not like something where we can be tired because the other team is just as tired as us.”

The Nets have also borrowed another tendency from the Celtics in taking a ton of three-pointers. They enter Friday sixth in the NBA in threes attempted per game with 40.1. It’s well behind the Celtics’ NBA-best 51.2 per game.

It’s also another thing Fernandez wants to emphasize that just so happens to be a Celtics trademark under coach Joe Mazzulla.

“It can always get better, get used to playing a certain way,” Fernandez said. “Like I said before, running a little bit more, taking those shots earlier in the clock, all that stuff, we can be better. And I think at times we offensive rebounded very well, sometimes we forgot to offensive rebound. So all those things we're working on. But yeah, happy overall.”

It’s not turning the Nets into the Celtics. However, to modify what Ric Flair said, to be a great team, you don’t have to beat them. Just adopt what makes them work into your own identity

“At the end of the day, our grit, our toughness, our competitive spirit, it's going to have to be there every game for us to be successful,” Cam Johnson said.

Notes and quotes

With Ben Simmons playing Friday, he’ll sit out Saturday’s game at the Cavaliers per the Nets’ policy of managing him following his back surgery…Saturday is also Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson’s first meeting against the Nets as a head coach since the two mutually parted ways in March 2020. Atkinson coached the Nets for four seasons (2016-20) and had a 118-190 record.

By Evan Barnes

evan.barnes@newsday.comevan_b

Evan Barnes covers the Nets for Newsday. He previously covered Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.