"For the first time since Kiki Vandeweghe took over as coach of the 2-25 Nets at the start of this month, they had a real practice yesterday with no opponent to prepare for and enough time and healthy bodies to make changes. And on a team this sorry, there are a whole lot of changes that need to be made.

"I'll say it. This is the first chance we've had to have a real practice," said Vandeweghe. "I'm not a big proponent of long practices with a lot of talking, but today we needed it. We tried to do a couple things a little differently.

"When you come in and the team's 0-18, you have to change some things, and we have."

Aside from working on fundamentals, two glaring issues Vandeweghe stressed in the long practice was transition defense and not falling into the bad habit of standing around stagnant when the ball goes in to Brook Lopez in the halfcourt.

Vandeweghe also got good news in the return of Yi Jianlian, out since Nov. 4. The forward practiced yesterday, and pronounced himself fit to play tomorrow vs. Minnesota.

"I'll be ready. Yeah, I feel good. I haven't played in a while, but I've been working on the knee and everything is good right now," said Yi. "I'm ready. I'll practice [today], one more practice and I'll be fine."

After first spraining his right knee in the fourth game of the season, Yi was set to return until he took a Sean Williams elbow to the mouth two weeks ago that resulted in 50 stitches. Now, Vandeweghe, who has long been one of Yi's biggest supporters, wasn't ruling out putting him right in the lineup."