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Brooklyn will host a playoff game for the first time in 57 years tonight when the Nets open their first playoff series inside Barclays Center against the Bulls.
And for Nets power forward Reggie Evans, who will be starting at power forward in his sixth trip to the postseason in his 11-year NBA career, being part of the first Nets’ playoff team in Brooklyn carries special significance.
“It’s our first year in Brooklyn,” Evans said. “Twenty years, 30 years from now, when they talk about how Brooklyn came into the NBA this year, they went in the playoffs right away, how they had a big splash, they had an All-Star [in Brook Lopez], they had a lot of adversity.
“There’s nothing like when you’re in a Brooklyn barbershop and they’re excited to talk about their team and not talk about the other team from New York.
“It’s just a good feeling for the borough of Brooklyn, and just representing that black and white.”
Tonight’s game will be the culmination of a year’s worth of planning and rolling out of the new-look Nets, going all the way back to last April, when the Nets wrapped up the last of their 35 years in New Jersey and officially unveiled their new black-and-white color scheme and logos.
In the intervening 12 months, the Nets have become one of the most talked-about teams in the league — something that was unheard of during their time in New Jersey, and particularly during their final two lame-duck seasons there. They were the subject of NBA TV’s year-long reality series, “The Association,” and after undergoing a massive offseason roster overhaul — as well as making a coaching change and letting Avery Johnson go in late December — the Nets finished with 49 wins, tying for the second-highest total in franchise history.
“It’s great to be able to do that in the first year in Brooklyn, and give the fans something to be excited about,” said Deron Williams, who is returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2010 when he was in Utah. “There’s just a buzz around the organization right now, because it’s been a little drought.”
Even though he only came to the Nets last season as an assistant under Johnson, interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said the impact the move to Brooklyn has made on the franchise has been bigger than he ever could have imagined.
“The whole Brooklyn phenomenon has just made this year very special,” Carlesimo said. “It’s not a normal year. Particularly, as most of you guys know, in comparison to what we went through. Not being in Jersey for 35 years, but lame-duck Jersey the last couple years when [we were] leaving soon, and it was a really a difficult situation.
“This year, to me, has been 10 times more exciting, more well-received, more attention, more everything. I don’t know all the other words, than I could have ever thought. I’m astounded it’s been as big a story [as it’s been] … Did I think it would be different? Yeah. But I never thought it’d be the way it’s been.”
But, at the same time, Carlesimo said that once the lights go up inside Barclays Center tonight and the teams begin what should be a long and hard-fought series, any thoughts about what it means to the borough to have a playoff team for the first time since the Dodgers played in the 1956 World Series will quickly leave everyone’s minds.
“In reality, it’s an 82-game schedule and we made the playoffs,” he said. “It’s still, all that other stuff, it’s great but it’s on the periphery … being in the playoffs trumps all of that. Being in the playoffs is the important thing, but all of the other things that have happened have made it seem like a bigger deal.”