For the Nets, quite a bit will come right down to this.
Thursday is Recreation 81 of the season for the 42-38 outfit, and sure an important they’ll play. If they will beat the Cavaliers, who're straight forward of them within the standings, the Nets will bounce into the 7-seed on a tiebreak, with the superior head-to-head file over Cleveland. Which means the play-in recreation — barring leads to Recreation 82 — can be at dwelling in Brooklyn, with the Nets getting one other chew on the apple in the event that they lose.
Lose to Cleveland, although, and the 7-seed is out of attain. It’s additionally inside the realm of risk that Brooklyn would fall again into the 9-10 recreation — the Nets are at present tied with Atlanta on file — giving them no margin for error within the match.
It’s simple to imagine that when the playoffs begin, the Nets may flip into the power they’ve didn't be all season, with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant each out there, even when Ben Simmons may not be. However for that to occur, they do need to, you understand, get there.
“We’ve confronted so many issues this 12 months that I believe emotionally and bodily have worn the group out,” coach Steve Nash advised reporters following Wednesday’s win over the Knicks. “After which now we want our greatest effort, and I believe typically that could be a troublesome mixture of feelings and bodily and psychological exhaustion that we've to climate right here for somewhat bit. Nights like tonight might help us clean up and really feel that perception once more.”
Nights like Wednesday, when the Nets went down 17 within the first half earlier than outsourcing the Knicks by 29 within the second half to win 110-98, assist remind you of what they are often and why they’ve didn't persistently get there.
“I hate being down,” Kevin Durant mentioned. “I hate even being that group. Get down and combat again. Like, I don’t even like that s–t. I don’t need that to be part of who we're.”
He was speaking in regards to the recreation. He may as effectively have been speaking in regards to the season.
The Nets, by any goal measure of their expertise, shouldn't be on this place going into the second-to-last recreation of the season. They shouldn't be fearful about their first-half effort both. However it's exhausting to argue with Patty Mills’ evaluation.
“I believe the satisfying half is figuring out that we've this combat in us and we've what we've within the locker room, and all of us imagine and perceive that we've what we have to get the job achieved on any given night time,” Mills mentioned. “In addition to figuring out we might be the final group standing.
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“The opposite facet of the fence is figuring out that we gotta have a constant 48 minutes of a recreation to be that group. And we all know it’s in us.”
A lot of that can come again to Irving and Durant. On Wednesday night time, Irving talked in regards to the “small conversations” the 2 had all through the sport, and the way it helped the Nets climb out of their deficit. They know the remainder of the group seems to them. They know the Nets will go the place they take them.
“I actually lean in on him and he is aware of I’m only a killer alongside him,” Irving mentioned. “So he might be exhausting on me. And he can say virtually something he needs within the warmth of the second. However we simply know we may demand excellence out of each other, and we simply wish to have that power stick with it to the remainder of the group.”
For a lot of the season, that excellence hasn’t been there.
Dwelling court docket within the play-in doesn’t operate as satisfactory comfort for that. Nevertheless it may very well be step one find it.
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