Sports

NET ‘DOGS PROMISE BIG BITE

Some sage coach way back when once told his players not to worry about the other guys just worry about themselves. Play your game. Make them beat you. Be yourselves. And Byron Scott did that yesterday, remaining as confident as ever.

“We know right now that anything is possible. We know that we can win the Finals,” Scott said.

As they headed into practice in the afternoon, still not knowing their next opponent, playing their game was exactly what the Nets had on their minds. Lakers or Kings? Didn’t matter. What did matter was that the Lakers or Kings had to face the Nets.

“I think we’re playing the best. We’ve peaked at the right time, we’ve gotten better each series and, obviously, the biggest test is in the NBA Finals,” Scott said. “So we’ll see what happens.”

So yesterday’s workout was pretty much taking care of what they did, focusing in on themselves. And maybe building up that little steam inside themselves caused by the rest of the planet viewing them as underdogs. Lakers or Kings, Nets are toast. They’ve heard that before.

“We’re going to be the underdogs, no matter how anybody looks at it, because everybody thinks the West is more dominant. They probably are, but the biggest thing is, you have to play it out on the court and we’re just going to play it out,” said Jason Kidd, the one man most responsible for trying to change that perception.

Even if people think the Nets are nuts, the point is they don’t. They have believed and, with victories over Indiana, Charlotte and Boston – where they were pretty much regarded as the lesser of two Eastern evils in at least two of the series – they have strengthened their faith.

And the fact that they are running and defending certainly doesn’t hurt that belief.

“I think we really peaked at the right time,” said Keith Van Horn, who has raised his game to new heights in the playoffs. “I believe that we have to have the confidence that we are the best team. This isn’t any time right now to believe that you’re inferior to anybody.

“I feel we can use it [underdog status] to our advantage. Against Boston, Charlotte and Indiana, we didn’t feel like we were underdogs,” Van Horn said. “We know in this series, people are going to consider us the underdogs and I think that’s going to be more present in our minds.”

And that was without even knowing who the opponent would be. If L.A., Kobe and Shaq would be too much. If Sacramento, Chris Webber and Mike Bibby and all those shooters would be too much.

But Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce were supposed to be too much. Charlotte’s size was supposed to be too much. And when it came down to a winner-take-all Game 5 against Indiana, Reggie Miller and his experience was supposed to be too much.

Of course, in that last instance, he almost was. But the Nets survived. To be viewed as underdogs despite their No. 1 seeding in the East. Fifty-two victories? A fluke. Atlantic Division title? A misprint, no doubt.

“They’ve been saying that since the first round,” said Kenyon Martin, who one year ago was rehabbing a broken right leg. “They’ve been saying everybody was going to beat us so, hopefully, we can keep doing what everybody said we couldn’t do, win. “They said we couldn’t guard this guy, we couldn’t do this, we couldn’t do that, and we proved everybody wrong,” Martin continued.