The Nets set off Monday on the longest road trip in team history and the longest in the NBA this season. And they did it after getting kicked around on their homecourt Sunday night.
After getting beaten by Charlotte 104-96, they embark on a three-week, nearly 8,000-mile trek that makes the “Odyssey” seem like a stroll around the block.
“That’s part of our league. It happens,” interim coach Tony Brown said. “You’re going to have stretches in the season where you’re going to have to go on the road for long periods of time. This is no different. I don’t look at it like that as a long trip.
“But this is an opportunity to play some quality teams and see how our new style holds up. Obviously, the teams out West are talented, and they present their own set of problems. But again, I try not to focus so much on what they’re doing. I’m just going to focus on what we’re doing going forward. We’ve got to play the games. That’s just the way the schedule pans out.”
The schedule-makers didn’t do the Nets any favors. This nine-game road stretch breaks the club record of eight straight done four times, most recently from Feb. 7-28 last year. It’s also the longest in the league since the Spurs also played nine straight away from home last Feb. 8-28.
The Nets kick things off Tuesday in Portland, followed by tilts in Phoenix against the Suns, Salt Lake City against the Jazz, a back-to-back set in Los Angeles against the Clippers and Lakers (the last time they will face the retiring Kobe Bryant), Denver against the Nuggets, Minneapolis against the Timberwolves, Toronto against the Raptors and finally Philadelphia against the 76ers.
It includes 7,979 air miles from gym to gym (and a bus trek to Philadelphia), with the Nets not playing in Barclays Center again until March 13 against the Bucks. And while Brown is right — they’ll certainly face some quality teams on their own courts — there’s only one way to get through a stretch like this.
“Take it one game at a time. You’ve just got to try to develop some kind of consistency on both ends of the floor. You know, obviously our defense hasn’t been great. It wasn’t great [Sunday], so it’s tough to win like that. We’ve got to get back to helping one another,” said Joe Johnson, who remains convinced they can salvage something from the second half of the season, starting with this trip.
“Yeah, definitely. You just want to try to finish strong and just try to develop some type of chemistry with players that we have here. Just keep improving as a team, individually, and see what happens.”
The Nets have been used to being sent on lengthy road trips since they moved to Brooklyn in 2012, mainly because Barclays Center annually hosts the circus. Cue all the jokes and snark about the Nets being a circus.
This time, the so-called circus trip actually will be seven games, with the Nets returning home to practice and having a pair of one-game trips on March 8 at Toronto and March 11 at Philadelphia.
They went 3-5 on last year’s circus trip, 4-3 the season before that and 5-3 back in their first Brooklyn campaign. They’ll be hard-pressed to come close to matching that this time around.
But if they do, point guard Donald Sloan said it’s a chance both to build their identity and boost their fan support when they finally get back.
“I think for us just getting our identity — defensively and offensively — developing more chemistry and of course getting the young guys healthy on the floor and rhythm, winning games of course, competing — kind of getting Brooklyn behind us a little more,” Sloan said. “Just kind of create some of that going into next year, I think that will be big. … But I think just creating a [vibe] that will roll over to next year [where] everybody’s behind the team.’’