NEW YORK -- The Brooklyn Nets came into the 2026-27 NBA season with the goal of winning more games than they did in 2025-26 with some players claiming that the team would shock some people around the league. After three games, Brooklyn is sporting an 0-3 record that is the result of some mishaps that the players are looking to correct before this losing streak goes too far.
"After the first quarter, I think that we had the right intentions. [It's the] first back-to-back of the season, [but] there's no excuses here," Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said after Sunday's 136-109 loss to the Indiana Pacers. Brooklyn held its own against Indiana in the first half, but in the third quarter, the Nets' proverbial train went off the rails as the Pacers built as much as a 26-point lead in the period.
"It's the NBA schedule, [but] the performance that we put up after the first quarter was just unacceptable. [When you give up] 112 points in three quarters, you're not winning basketball games," Fernandez continued. "So, it didn't feel good on either way, [on] either end of the floor. We [Fernandez and the coaching staff] have to help them better, and we will be better. It's a process, and we know what we're trying to do here."
The Nets went into halftime trailing the Pacers 65-56, but in the third quarter, Brooklyn lost the period by 13 points, but Indiana shot 60.9% from the field and turned the ball over just twice. Once the Pacers expanded the lead to 26 points, Fernandez went deeper into the bench and that led to Danny Wolf and Drake Powell seeing their first NBA minutes of the season. However, it became clear that the team wasn't doing what it needed to do to beat Indiana.
"it felt like we just kind of rolled over as a team. We came back from [a 22-point deficit] yesterday, made it a game. I think we should stay in the fight, but the starting group gotta play better to end quarters and start the half," forward Michael Porter Jr. said during his postgame interview. From the 2:45 mark in the second quarter when the Pacers called a timeout to the end of the third quarter, the Nets trailed the Pacers 53-29.
"We've been struggling to close quarters. We'll be up two or down two, and then, the last three minutes of the quarter, we go into halftime down nine. So, we give them momentum and they just kind of build off of it," Brooklyn forward Julius Randle said. In all three of the Nets' games this season, they have faced at least a double-digit deficit and aside from the season-opener against the Charlotte Hornets, they have faced a deficit of at least 22 points.
Starting a season 0-3 is far from a death sentence for a team looking to make the postseason, but as John Schuhmann wrote for NBA.com, only 27 of the 105 teams that started 0-3 since there has been 30 teams have went on to make the playoffs. So, if Brooklyn is looking to make it to the postseason in some capacity, they will have to fix their issues sooner rather than later.
This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Several Nets discuss what led to 136-109 blowout loss to Pacers