Only 5 games remain until the countdown until the Nets first lottery appearance since 2001, barring a miracle, yet each of the next two games have major Eastern Conference playoff implications. Tonight the Nets travel to Cleveland to play a slumping Cavs team still fighting for home-court advantage in the first round. Friday night New Jersey heads north of the border for another matchup against Toronto, now below .500 thanks to a 4-11 stretch that’s dropped the Raptors to the seventh seed.
Teams entering the postseason have three items on the wish list: health, home court, and peak at the right time. Cleveland currently has none of the three, losing its stranglehold on the 4-seed with losses in five of seven, putting home court at risk, and worst of all, a bad back hobbles Lebron James. Try telling Coach Mike Brown tonight’s game with New Jersey means nothing. If the Nets need extra incentive to play spoiler, Coach Frank’s squad can sweep the Cavs for the season since 1982-83, and only the second time since the merger.
Toronto faces a host of problems. Chris Bosh returned from injury to a team that fell apart without him, 2-8 during his absence, and he let them know about it by criticizing the team. Even with Bosh, the Raptors continue to struggle, falling behind both Washington and Philadelphia in the standings, by one and two games respectively. A first-round matchup with Detroit will almost guarantee a second straight first round exit. Toronto has five games left to turn things around, try to grab a better seed, and buy themselves a fighting chance in the first round. Vince Carter never needs an extra reason to play hard against the Raptors, but if he did, quieting the rabid Canadian fans while extinguishing any hopes for the fifth or sixth seed will help.
While the Nets countdown to the draft lottery, they still have a chance to leave their fingerprints on the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs before hitting the links.
One Response
Anonymous April 10th at 6:15 am
As much as it will be hard for me to accept the fact that the Nets will not be in thr postseason for the first time since I’ve really been a huge fan of them, it’s not such a big deal. When we traded Kidd away, we obviously were looking towards the future, to suceed there, not now. Sure, the playoffs would have been a nice bonus to the trade, but the major point of the trade was to gain for the future, which we did. So we don’t make the playoffs for the first time in a while and we break a streak that was 3rd in the NBA at consecutive years making the playoffs. Of course that will be hard for all Nets fans, but what we have to realize is that when we traded Kidd, we were basically putting aside winning right now. We want to gain in the future, which the lottery will only help. Even if we made the playoffs, what would have happened? A sweep to Boston? Maybe, MAYBE 5 games against Boston, but we would have no shot at defeating them in a 7 game series. And remember what the Raptors did 2 years ago, getting the #1 pick with just a 8% chance in getting it… the Nets could somehow, someway maybe snatch up a top 5 draft pick. Haha, Im not saying it’s likely, but those ping pong balls always are mysteries.