The losses continue to pile up for the Brooklyn Nets, as Thursday's outing in Paris, France against the Cleveland Cavaliers marked the club's seventh loss in eight games.
Despite it being a rather chippy and high-energy battle throughout, with Jacque Vaughn's squad even outscoring their opponents 68-57 in the second half of action, ultimately their atrocious start to the game (scored just six points through roughly the first nine minutes of action and went into halftime down 54-34) and opposing star Donovan Mitchell's heroics (45 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals) proved too challenging to overcome.
In the end, Brooklyn fell by a final score of 111-102 and now heads back to the states with a lackluster record of 16-22.
Following the contest, star Mikal Bridges was asked during a press conference how he feels about the current state of the Nets after enduring yet another tough defeat. In response, the forward went on to provide a rather blunt yet honest assessment of his emotions regarding the team.
Mikal Bridges gets honest about current state of the Nets
"We just got to get better. We just got to get better every day. That's what it is, we just got to trust each other on both ends, we got to play harder. That's the main thing. We just got to try to be better and take it one game at a time and try to get better on off days, practice days, and game days."Mikal Bridges
As has generally been the case throughout this recent losing stretch and, frankly, the season as a whole, Bridges proved to be one of the only difference-makers for the Nets during their latest contest, as he went on to drop a team-high 26 points to go along with 6 boards, 1 assist, and 1 steal.
Though his shooting splits were far from desirable (shot 33.3 from the field and beyond the arc), it's somewhat understandable considering he was tasked with trying to create looks for himself while having Cleveland's defense zeroing in on him throughout the game being he's essentially the lone capable playmaker on this entire Brooklyn team.
As Bridges bluntly stated, the Nets need to get better if they want to have a chance at clinching their sixth-straight postseason berth this season. Whether it's by way of proper coaching adjustments or bolstering the talent pool via the trade market, something needs to change for this club.
If not, they should expect to continue on with this type of underwhelming brand of play moving forward.