The Nets defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 115-102 in Sunday’s home opener at Barclays Center, earning their first win of the 2024-25 season and Jordi Fernandez‘s first win as an NBA head coach. The 41-year-old spent most of his postgame news conference wiping away tears. His wife, kids, parents and in-laws were at the game. Fernandez wears his emotions on his sleeves. It was clear that he did not take the moment for granted. After all, he did become the first Spanish-born head coach to win an NBA game. “Fun” and “wet” were the words he used to describe the postgame celebration that followed. Players and assistants honored him with the game ball. “It represents a moment in my life,” Fernandez said. “You look at it and it’s the beginning of something special. That’s how I’m going to look at that ball. 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. So, she says ‘that goes in your office.’ But I can look at it, and I can believe that that’s the beginning of something very special.” Fernandez, now three games into his new job, has been hellbent on trying to establish a winning culture in Brooklyn. He wants the franchise to best represent the Brooklyn grit and the Brooklyn Way. It remains a work progress, and it will take some time before Fernandez’s vision can be fully fleshed out. But Sunday’s 13-point win — against a perennial contender in the Eastern Conference — gave us an idea of what it could look like. “We’re still figuring everything out,” Nic Claxton said. “We’re still getting the rotations down, how we want to guard… It’s a great challenge. And just us seeing that, seeing the vision, getting that first win is definitely good, getting that monkey off your back.” The Nets shot the ball poorly and were outrebounded in the first half, but they held Milwaukee to 39.5% shooting and forced 10 turnovers, which gave them 11 more shot attempts and eight extra points. They started 1-of-6 from the field and 0-of-3 from deep but continued to lean on their defense even when shots were not falling. Their persistence was rewarded with a 48-45 halftime lead, and they did not let up down the stretch. Brooklyn would limit the Bucks to 44.6% shooting for the game (10-of-33 from deep). It turned 18 turnovers into 21 points and won the battle on the glass 47-43. Giannis Antetokounmpo still got his buckets, finishing with 22 points in 33 minutes, but the Nets did not let the two-time MVP break the game. Claxton, who came off the bench for the third straight game, served as Antetokounmpo’s primary defender and was plus-23 in 22 minutes. “It’s on all 5 guys against a guy like Giannis,” Claxton said. “It’s on everybody to be on the same page to all load up. It’s not just on like me or Ben [Simmons] or whoever is guarding him. I didn’t feel like i was out there by myself tonight. Everybody, the whole defense, we had a great game plan from the coaches, and we did a great job executing.” Cam Thomas, continuing his torrid offensive start to the 2024-25 season, poured in a game-high 32 points for Brooklyn and Dennis Schröder added 29 points, for rebounds and six assists. They became the first teammates in Nets history to top 25 points in a home opener. “It’s great to see: first-year head coach gets first win against a good team,” Thomas said. “That’s kind of rare, honestly. But, I mean, we played hard start-to-finish. We were preaching playing a full four quarters. I think the first two games, we feel like those games were winnable because we played really well in the first half, and had a chance to win, but in the second half, we kind of just fell apart. The other team went on runs, and we fouled a lot, but I think today, we put together a pretty good full game. Obviously, there’s stuff we work on still, but I’m proud of what we did today for sure.”