Competitive losses, competitive losses, competitive losses. (And player development for the young guys.) It’s been two games, but even before the regular season commenced, the goal for the Brooklyn Nets was crystal clear.

With two notable exceptions: when they face the Milwaukee Bucks and when they face the New York Knicks. It’s not the well-earned disdain Brooklyn has for Giannis Antetokounmpo and their enemies across the East River, but that Brooklyn owns each of their 2025 NBA Draft picks. First-rounders too, you might’ve heard.

There is plenty of time to tank this season, but the home-opener against a team whose draft pick Brooklyn controls? This was the time to get a win … and play the young guys. Not to mention when you want the new head coach to get his first win.

To those ends, the first half went swimmingly. After his reduced minutes in Orlando and a message from Jordi Fernández, Jalen Wilson was the first Net off the bench on Sunday night, though he did play just 14 minutes in total. Keon Johnson snatched Shake Milton’s burn, though he didn’t do much of anything in his eight minutes.

Most importantly, the Nic Claxton + Noah Clowney front-court delivered on the optimism it’s been providing fans since the spring. Claxton looked like himself for the first time yet, making extra-effort plays while protecting the rim, sprinkling in a coast-to-coast as well…

Claxton played 20 minutes, which Brooklyn won by 23 points, and finished with a double-double and two blocks.. But his lineups would not have been nearly as effective without Noah Clowney, who scored 13 points, including three triples and one of the most impressive finishes of his young career…

He and Ziaire Williams buttressed Clax with just enough offense in addition to their size and length to give Milwaukee real problems.

The visitors missed their share of open jumpers, and Giannis (three shots) was clearly saving up for a second-half takeover, but Brooklyn’s 48-45 lead at the break was no fluke. They shot just 7-of-23 from deep, but dominated the possession battle by refusing to turn the ball over. It was honest-to-god good basketball, particularly from the bench.

“We was solid,” said Claxton to YES Network’s Meghan Triplett at halftime. “[But] it was also solid in the first two games in the first half. We’ve just got to do it for 48 minutes.”

Though the third quarter had an entirely different feel, Brooklyn won that high-scoring stretch too. Giannis and Damian Lillard started to cook, as Brook Lopez — who finished with 15 points on nine shots — remained efficient, but the Nets’ guards got going as well.

Dennis Schröder evenly distributed his 29 points across the two halves, and instead of waiting until the fourth quarter, Thomas picked it up a bit earlier, scoring 14 of his game-high 32 points in the third…

Despite all the highlight buckets, Fernández cited Thomas’ “engagement” as the most impressive part of his night. “He talked to his teammates, constantly talked to me. On both ends, he was very good, very involved. So that’s what I want to see from CT, and I want to see this growth. Like, we’ll give you the ball because we know your superpower now; can you do it efficiently? Can you make your teammates better? Can you guard? So all those things: He’s doing right now, and I’m going to keep pushing him to do it even better.”

It is true that midway through the fourth, he subbed Cam Johnson (who was very good), Dorian Finney-Smith, and Ben Simmons — who did not heed his head coach’s request to take “10-to-15 shots per game” (1-of-3) — back in…

…but the game had been decided in Brooklyn’s favor. And the lineup that decided it was clear.

The shot-creation of Schröder and Thomas was complemented wonderfully by the activity of Clowney, Claxton, and Williams, who flew in for a put-back dunk to push the lead to 15, serving as the unofficial dagger. Milwaukee called a timeout, shuffled around aimlessly on their sideline, and stared off into the distance.

But there was no denying it. They got their teeth kicked in by the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday evening. No shooting luck, no bad breaks, just a beatdown. Thomas and Schröder were efficient and explosive in the second half, and even as Giannis willed himself to get going, Brooklyn flew around, then turned that into offense…

Jordi Fernández notched his first win as a head coach because his team played every head coach’s dream.

The Brooklyn Nets took more shots in the paint than the Milwaukee Bucks. They took more threes. They grabbed more offensive rebounds and turned the ball over less. They shot better from the free-throw line.

The Nets won a basketball game, and it felt pretty good.

Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 115, Milwaukee Bucks 102

Team spirit abounds

Before the game, Dennis Schröder addressed the non-incident from Orlando, where a fan heckled Ben Simmons postgame, and Schröder firmly told the fan that’s not cool…

“No matter what happens to one of my teammates I’m going to stand up for him,” said the German guard. “So you know whenever something happens like that, I speak up for them.”

During Sunday’s game, Schröder’s teammates returned the favor after he was inadvertently hit in the head by Pat Connaughton during a loose-ball situation. Schröder picked himself up off the hardwood with bloodlust in his eye, but his team, starting with Jordi Fernández, saved him from a fine…

Claxton had a laugh about it in the locker room “There might be a few crash-outs on the team. We got to watch these dudes; these dudes turning crazy. But yeah, we need that though.”

He is right, after all. The Nets, as every team does, need a few hyper-competitive dudes willing to approach the limits. Schröder is not only a veteran leader of the team, but undoubtedly one of those dudes.

After the game, he didn’t speak about that incident specifically, but about what the Brooklyn Nets mean to him, and got real introspective about both his present and future: “At the end of the day, if [a trade] happens, I can handle it. But Brooklyn: When I first got traded here, they texted my mom, texted my wife, sent them flowers, and I love things like that. My teammates from the first day, they were talking to me. They made me feel comfortable.”

He continued: “That’s all you can ask for. Of course, the front office and all those guys, social media guys, everybody is just cool and making sure the players are straight. That’s the reason why I can see myself being here long-term … Even if I get traded, I always gotta see the positive side of it. But I want to stay here.”

Enough said.

Jordi’s first win

Before the game, Jordi Fernández discussed what his first home-opener as an NBA head coach would mean to him: “My wife’s here, my kids are here, my parents are here, my mother-in-law and her husband are here. It doesn’t get better than this, the fans, right?”

Then his team went out and executed his game-plan en route to a win against a perceived* contender (*It’s looking a little spooky for Milwaukee.) Pretty good day, right?

“So I have my loved ones here, it’s very special. Like, coming all the way from starting from the bottom in the NBA, and working really hard, and moving up and moving up.”

Fernández called the celebration in the locker room “fun and wet,” and reader, here is why…

Of course, Fernández kept it very coach-like even when regaling his accomplishment: “At the end of the day, I didn’t win anything. The guys won the game. That’s what basketball is, played by players. And I’m very proud of them, because we as coaches try to help them. And they’ve been really coachable. They’ve been great”

And while the basketball from the victory might not be front-and-center in his home — “I’m going to put it in my office, because my wife does a great job decorating the house, and she doesn’t want my basketballs everywhere” — nothing can take away from Sunday’s victory for Brooklyn’s leading man.

Milestone Watch

Aside from Fernández’s first win, Cam Thomas is now averaging 30.7 points a game … and 23.3 in the second half. Start there:

• The record for most points for a Net in the team’s first three games is held by Kyrie Irving at 113. Second is Cam Thomas with 99 last year … and fifth is Thomas with 92 this year. Only three players in Nets history to average 30.0 points a game in team’s first three: Irving, Thomas and Kevin Durant.
• Cam Thomas (32 points) and Dennis Schroder (29 points) recorded 25+ points in the same game for the second time as teammates (previously: 3/29/24 vs. Chicago).
• Nic Claxton (10 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks) notched the first double-double for a Net this season in only 22 minutes.
• Noah Clowney went 3-of-8 — 37.5% — from deep, matching his career best 3-point total back in April.
• Two-ways Cui Yongxi and Jaylen Martin played in their first NBA game and each scored their first NBA points (Cui on a free throw; Martin on a 3-pointer). Cui becomes the seventh Chinese-born player in NBA history and the first in six years. The Nets posted a video of Cui’s free throw on their Weibo account:

Next Up

Another recent champion led by a foreign, multi-time MVP winner. The Denver Nuggets play in Toronto on Monday night, then fly to Brooklyn for the second night of a back-to-back. Tip-off for Tuesday night is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET.