TORONTO — The Nets find themselves in an interesting predicament entering today’s game against the Raptors.
Despite officially wrapping up homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs, thanks to the combination of Friday’s win over the Pacers and the Bulls’ loss to the Raptors, the Nets still have something to play for over their final three games of the regular season.
If they win those three games and the Pacers lose their final three, the Nets would move up from the No. 4 seed to the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs — no small prize, considering that would mean avoiding the defending champion Heat until the Eastern Conference Finals.
Nevertheless, the odds of things playing out in exactly that manner are quite low, leaving the Nets with the question of whether or not to keep playing their stars — most notably Deron Williams, Joe Johnson and Brook Lopez — until the possibility of the third seed goes away, or to begin resting their players for the start of the playoffs on Saturday or Sunday in Brooklyn.
“We had to continue to play [to lock up homecourt],” interim coach P.J. Carleismo said. “We’re in a different discussion now.
“We’ve got to weigh the pros and cons of resting guys and getting guys healthy and seeing what happens in these however many games remaining.”
Carlesimo said that after Friday’s win in Indianapolis, and a few hours before one of the game’s all-time greats, Kobe Bryant, crumbled to the floor inside Staples Center in Los Angeles after suffering a devastating and season-ending injury to his left Achilles tendon.
It’s exactly that kind of situation the Nets would like to make sure doesn’t happen to one of their stars.
But the Nets do have a few injury concerns to manage over the next several days. Gerald Wallace, the team’s starting small forward, missed Friday’s game after suffering a lower left leg contusion in Wednesday’s win at Boston, while key reserve Keith Bogans returned for Friday’s win after sitting out the previous two games with a tight lower back.
Still, Williams said after Friday’s win he wants to keep playing, in order to both maintain the Nets’ impressive closing form — they enter today’s game with wins in four straight games, as well as five of their last six — but also to not give up the chance of slipping past Indiana.
“I still want to play,” said Williams, who suffered several minor bumps and bruises in Friday’s win, but seemed fine afterwards. “We can still get the third seed. We have to hope for Indiana to lose some games, but it’s still possible. I think we have a good thing going right now, and we’re just getting Joe back [healthy], and hopefully we’ll get Gerald back soon.
“We need to be going full tilt going into the playoffs.”
Johnson, who has shown steady improvement in recent days after spending the last few weeks dealing with both a sore left heel and a right quad contusion, agreed.
“We’ll just take it one day at a time, and see how things go,” Johnson said.
For the next few days — or at least until the possibility of finishing third is out the window — that’s all the Nets can do.