Nets’ Jacque Vaughn says team’s effort has to be ‘unconditional’
Brooklyn Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn, fresh off a contract extension, has to address an important issue with his team: effort. There have been various times throughout this season where his players have either given little to not effort or just weren’t able to get anything soon enough and appeared to give up.
In Friday’s 131-87 demolition at the hands of the Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn looked out of it from the opening tip. Right away, the Bulls got off to a fast start by scoring the game’s first 11 points and it took the Nets nearly four minutes to score a basket. This contest was the definition of lopsided in every conceivable way.
Brooklyn shot 37% from the field compared to Chicago’s 56.8%, Chicago out-rebounded Brooklyn 57-31, and to cap things off, the Bulls out-scored the Nets in the paint 62-22. In a game in which Chicago’s biggest lead was 50 points, it looked like the Nets never gave an ounce of effort after that poor start to the game. Vaughn said after the game that the effort has to come from which player regardless of the circumstances:
“I’m looking forward to how we respond. But, it’s going to be a test of our collective unit, of doing everything you possibly can, every single day. Off days, recovery days, in order to give your all to your team. And, it’s got to be unconditional too. It’s not, if I play this amount of minutes, if I get this amount of shots. You have to be an unconditional teammate at this time of year. Because teams are playing for position, teams are playing to get into the playoffs. And, so you cannot have nights like this, where we play this bad.”
