The Nets are the hottest team in the NBA, earning their ninth straight win Monday with a 125-117 win in Cleveland and improving to 20-7 under interim coach Jacque Vaughn.
So how has Brooklyn overcome off-season drama, a rocky start that led to Steve Nash's firing, and a two-week span where Kyrie Irving was at the top of the headlines (and the bottom of the eligibility chart) for all the wrong reasons?
"We stressed that when we came back as a group, we pledged to each other that it was gonna be about basketball and hopefully not let anything interfere, any outside noise interfere with that," Vaughn said. "We have not steered away from today is today. The most important part of today is we're trying to win this ballgame. When we step into the gym every single day it's about basketball. How we're going to take care of each other on the floor, cover for each other on the floor, it's about basketball."
Vaughn, who also served as the interim coach in the NBA's 2020 bubble after Kenny Atkinson was fired just before the league shut down, has also simplified the playbook a bit.
"I am a simple person and really try to keep things simple, so we really stressed what was going to be beneficial for our team," Vaughn said. "We stripped our playbook down a little bit, we are simple in what we do, try to stress defensively three common things… have our guys play extremely free of mind. I think there's something important to that if you're going to ask your guys to play hard."
And, he's stripped the Nets' work down to basics, so to speak, when it came to preparation.
"Whether that was the amount of time we spent in shootarounds, the amount of time we shaved and kept our guys fresh, in order to give an extreme amount of effort when we play…that was kind of the goal, and we created a little momentum that way."
The Nets are now 22-12, just two games behind Boston for the top spot in the East, and the surge comes as the Knicks are sliding, 18-16 and losers of four in a row after a Christmas Day defeat at the hands of the 76ers.
So Brooklyn has the headlines for the right reasons again, although Kevin Durant said that all the noise – including Irving's situation – hasn't been a distraction.
"To be honest, I think we've always been about ball," he said. "No disrespect to (the media), I think the outside noise from the media and the fans just make it seem like we don't care about the game or we are not focused on the task ahead, but I thought we've always been."
Durant did admit the team struggled early, but dismissed the notion that it was because of outside distractions.
"It's the fact that you don't have much to talk about outside of the game, so that's not adding to the discussion around our team, but from us, we've always been about the game," KD said. "We struggled early on, I'm not saying we didn't struggle, but we always were focused on playing basketball. I think that other people were trying to look for stuff to put on our team, label our team, whatever. I know the Kyrie stuff may be what you're talking about, but I feel like we've always been about the game, all of us."
All that said, KD did agree that his head coach's mission to keep things simple has helped immensely.
"What we did was simplify both ends of the basketball. Coach shored up our roles individually, and pretty much let us know each day what he needs from us, and I think that's been the focus," Durant said. "So it's not like, 'Man, finally we got the noise out of our locker room and now we can play.' I just think we've always been locked in on basketball and trying to help get this thing back on track."
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