MIAMI — When this Nets team was put together last summer, it was easy and understandable to focus on the $190 million price tag, including both payroll and luxury-tax commitments, and the lengthy list of All-Stars on the roster.
But since the Nets began their remarkable turnaround with their come-from-behind win in Oklahoma City on Jan. 2, the Nets have been spurred on as much by contributions from players Nets general manager Billy King got for low-budget deals over the past two summers as they have been by the star-studded starting lineup. The lineup King expected to put on the court this summer is earning a combined $82.5 million this season.
“We’ve developed a trust and a bond in the last couple of months,” coach Jason Kidd said after the Nets beat the Heat 96-95 Wednesday night. “Team basketball, that’s who we are. It’s not just one guy.
“We always try to have someone to give us a lift. That’s how we’ll win, and that’s how we’ll lose.”
Take Wednesday’s win over the two-time defending champion Heat, for example. Shaun Livingston, who is playing on a veteran’s minimum contract after spending the past several years battling back from a gruesome knee injury, made the game-saving play in the final moments, keeping LeBron James from catching an inbounds pass from Chris Bosh.
Mirza Teletovic, who signed for the mini mid-level exception in 2012, had 17 points, including hitting a pair of crucial 3-pointers to keep the Nets in front in the fourth quarter, while the team also got crucial minutes out of fellow bench players Alan Anderson, Andray Blatche and Marcus Thornton.
“It’s huge,” Livingston said. “It’s our identity, and we’re harder to beat as a team [this way]. When you have certain guys you can focus on, and then other guys don’t have the rhythm or confidence, it makes it easy for other guys to guard them, and to scout them.
“Especially in a playoff situation, where you’re playing a team in a seven-game series, they have to pick their poison. For us to have everybody playing at a high level and contributing to a win like this, it’s huge for us.”
Anderson, like Livingston, is playing on a veteran’s minimum deal, while Blatche signed with the Nets for the same after being amnestied by the Wizards in the summer of 2012, then re-signed for a slight raise last summer. He has proven to be an immense value, as he was Wednesday when he finished with 11 points, four rebounds and three assists in just under 26 minutes.
Thornton has already nearly single-handedly won three games with huge scoring bursts since being acquired from the Kings at the trade deadline for a pair of older players at the end of the bench in Jason Terry and Reggie Evans. Thornton, 26, struggled he first half of the season in Sacramento.
And then there’s Mason Plumlee, who has gone from barely playing behind Blatche and Kevin Garnett in the Nets’ small-ball lineup featuring four perimeter players starting the past seven games while Garnett has sat out with back spasms, a stretch in which the Nets are 6-1 and have picked up wins over the Bulls, Grizzlies, Raptors and Heat.
“I think we’ve come together,” Paul Pierce said. “Guys are understanding the significance of the season at this point, and we’re owning up. I think everybody is taking it upon themselves to step up.
“Mason, we’ve asked him to start now, and there was a stretch we didn’t even ask him to play. It comes from a number of guys. [Mirza] he hasn’t been shooting the ball particularly well of late, and [Wednesday] he came up huge. A number of guys are going to have their chance throughout the year to step up and that’s how they built this roster.”