The Nets discovered success by means of an arduous street journey. The upcoming homestand, nonetheless, initiatives as lower than form.
After wrapping their five-game street journey in Oklahoma Metropolis on Tuesday — a stretch that additionally featured pit stops in Houston, Milwaukee, Minnesota and Denver — the Nets now welcome the NBA’s elite to Barclays Heart for a four-game stretch certain to check the bounds of their newfound No. 1 protection.
The Nets host the Western Convention’s No. 3 Sacramento Kings on Thursday; host Nikola Jokic and the West’s No. 1 seeded Nuggets in a matinee recreation on Sunday; then welcome Donovan Mitchell and the Japanese Convention’s fourth-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers in back-to-back video games.
The Nets simply defeated the Nuggets in Denver in certainly one of their finest video games of the season, however the Nuggets consider they obtained caught sleeping. Count on that workforce to make a press release in Brooklyn.
The stretch then continues on the street in Miami towards a Warmth workforce which will have turned a nook by creeping into the East’s No. 7 seed, adopted by a visit to Orlando hours later within the second recreation of a a back-to-back towards a protracted, athletic and spry Magic workforce.
The Nets exited the All-Star break with the NBA’s seventh-most tough remaining schedule in all of basketball. They misplaced their first 4 video games out of the break, then received 5 video games in six tries getting into Tuesday’s matchup towards the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder.
That makes Brooklyn 5-5 by means of the primary 10 video games of one of many NBA’s 10 hardest schedules. From this level on, the Nets have the twelfth lightest schedule, although their upcoming six-game stretch is as tough a slate of video games any workforce has to face.
The Nets have quite a lot of causes to be motivated to safe as many wins as potential, chief amongst them their very playoff livelihood in a convention with three underachieving groups that entered the season with aspirations of deep playoff runs.
The No. 7 Warmth, No. 8 Atlanta Hawks and No. 10 Chicago Bulls have all disenchanted given the star energy on their respective rosters — and you may add the No. 11 Washington Wizards as a perennial contender for let-down of the yr. Every of these groups invested in star energy — but every of these groups, minus the embarrassing Wizards, would discover themselves in sudden-death Play-In Match territory if the playoffs started immediately.
The playoffs don’t.
Each Japanese Convention workforce entered Tuesday with at the very least 12 video games left on the schedule. The Warmth, for instance, are three video games behind the Nets within the standings and have performed two extra video games than the Nets thus far this season.
But they've the fifth-lightest schedule in all of basketball, their stars (Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro) are all wholesome, and the Warmth entered Tuesday winners of 4 of their final six video games.
Trae Younger’s Hawks have 13 video games left on the schedule and have the thirteenth strongest remaining schedule — in different phrases: a comparatively common slate — and have additionally underperformed given Younger’s star energy, the addition of Dejounte Murray and the three-and-D capability of their versatile roster. Additionally they fired head coach Nate McMillan halfway by means of the season and changed him with Quin Snyder — who molded the Utah Jazz into perennial contenders round Mitchell — offering extra proof Atlanta is residence to a workforce able to making a late-season run.
The Bulls are much less of a risk with the eighth strongest remaining schedule in all of basketball, however at 5 video games below-.500 and seven.5 video games behind the Nets within the standings, the desperation stage within the Windy Metropolis needs to be excessive. With DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Nikola Vucevic on the ground, Chicago isn’t a workforce anybody needs on the fallacious evening, particularly not in a winner-take-all Play-In Match recreation.
One more reason the Nets want to return out on the favorable finish of the upcoming six-game stretch? It could possibly be the distinction between seeing Joel Embiid within the first spherical of the playoffs — and seeing Mitchell.
Brooklyn entered Tuesday in a digital tie with the Knicks for the No. 5 seed, and the 2 groups are tied at 2-2 of their season collection, that means the tiebreaker standards would come right down to division file. The Knicks are 8-8 within the Atlantic Division and the Nets are 7-8 with their last division recreation on April 9 in Brooklyn within the season finale towards Embiid and the 76ers.
And if the Nets end with a extra favorable file than the Knicks of their last dash to the postseason, they will evade the No. 3 76ers, who're three-and-a-half video games forward of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a way more favorable first-round opponent if the Nets preserve maintain of the East’s No. 5 seed.
In the event that they don’t, the best-case state of affairs is a date with Embiid, and as for worst case: with the surging Warmth, there’s no assure the Nets maintain onto No. 6, that means each recreation counts from right here on out if the Nets wish to keep a playoff workforce this season.
That begins with an upcoming stretch at Barclays Heart — internet hosting Sacramento, Denver, and Spida Mitchell twice — earlier than a visit to Miami to face a motivated Warmth workforce within the first leg of a back-to-back shortly after.
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