Maybe the Nets are an immature team that doesn’t know how to win.
Or maybe they’re a talent-starved team that — without Michael Porter Jr. — doesn’t have the means to win.
Either way, the result wasn’t pretty.
The Nets struggled through an offensively challenged 115-103 NBA Cup loss to the visiting 76ers before a sellout crowd of 17,809 at Barclays Center on Friday night.
Already without Cam Thomas, the Nets (3-15) played sans Porter, sidelined by low back tightness. Considering the latter’s history, the team can downplay the injury all it wants, but it will set off alarms.
The way they looked Friday will raise more.
The Nets shot 40.5 percent, were just 13 of 43 from deep and needed a late-game heater from rookie Egor Dëmin to muster even that much offense. They suffered through a six-minute drought without a basket and — other than Dëmin, who had 15 of his career-high 23 points in the fourth quarter — struggled to score.
Even with Porter and Thomas, the Nets aren’t gifted enough to coast. Without that pair, they certainly can’t afford to be outscored 31-10 in fast break points and fall asleep in transition.
That’s exactly what they did.
“The biggest challenge is to ask the team to play hard and play focused, and we’re back to square one,” coach Jordi Fernández said. “I’m going to keep pushing. Right now, when you’re asking to play really hard and stay focused, you’re not coaching. And right now, that is the battle that we have.
“I’m happy with how the guys are trying to get better and work everything. But if there’s stretches where I have to ask to play, [for] the intensity go up and the concentration to be there, then we have a problem.”
Of course, for these tanking Nets, the silver lining of a worse record is better lottery odds.
They’re now in fourth in the race to the bottom, just a half-game behind runners-up Indiana and New Orleans, whose pick Atlanta owns, and a full game ahead of Sacramento.
On Friday, they had the added bonus of their young players showing fairly well. Noah Clowney had 16 points and seven rebounds, while Danny Wolf had five points and five rebounds in his first extended NBA action.
But Dëmin was by far the best of the lot, with nine boards, five assists and a great fourth quarter.
After a scoreless first half, the lottery pick had 15 points and four boards in the final period, going 3 of 6 from deep.
But as the Nets had trailed by 21, they had dug far too deep a hole. Fernández let them hear about it.
“The message is just you’ve got to play with that same intensity, no matter if you’re No. 1 or if you’re the last guy on the bench. You’ve just got to have that same intensity, and when he doesn’t see it, he’s gonna let us know,” Wolf said.
“He said pretty much the same thing, just that for us to be able to win games, we really have to maintain that level of energy that we want to reach during the game,” Dëmin added. “And it’s not one or the other player, but on the whole group.”
The Nets didn’t have to face injured Joel Embiid or VJ Edgecombe, and Andre Drummond left with a knee injury in the second quarter. It didn’t matter.
Tyrese Maxey had 22 points, nine rebounds and seven assists for Philadelphia, while Jared McCain scored 20.
Trailing 42-31 after a Terance Mann jumper, the Nets allowed a 12-2 run.
Later, after a Dëmin 3 had them back within 74-65 with four minutes left in the third, they conceded three straight fast break buckets the other way. The Nets never mounted another challenge.
The offense sputtered in Porter’s absence, with his status for Saturday’s tilt in Milwaukee very much in doubt.
“Obviously, we’re never going to rush him. His health, body, is the No. 1 priority,” Fernández said. “We’re not concerned. [It’s] tightness, and we’ll see how he feels.”