The Nets have been saying all the right things about their actions over the final few games of the regular season, saying they were focused on rest, not playoff positioning.
But after Brooklyn lost four of its final five regular-season games to fall out of the fifth seed — and a meeting with playoff-tested Chicago — and into sixth and a matchup with inexperienced Toronto, Jeff Van Gundy saw something else.
“Yeah, they tanked to try to get to Toronto, OK,” the ESPN analyst said Thursday on a conference call previewing the playoffs.
Van Gundy also thinks the Nets may not have been wise to fall into a matchup with the Raptors, who won a franchise-record 48 games en route to their second Atlantic Division title.
“Well, it’s really interesting,” Van Gundy said. “The Nets absolutely tried to get to [the Raptors] by resting their guys and moving games down the stretch, so this is a very unique situation. You have a third seed who’s really good, and you have teams who are trying to win to get to them and lose to get to them.
“The Nets from Jan. 1 until they started resting guys down the stretch and trying to get the matchup they wanted, they were playing as well as anyone. And so it’s certainly going to be difficult, but I like the Raptors a lot. I think they’ve had a remarkable season led by a remarkable coach, and I think they’ve got a great shot at advancing to the second round.”
Van Gundy said while Nets coach Jason Kidd’s lack of playoff experience as a coach is overblown — saying Kidd has performed well and kept his team together amid “withering criticism” this season — he’s curious to see how Kidd will change his rotation once the playoffs begin after using 10 or 11 players on a regular basis during the regular season.
“Who’s [in] his rotation?” Van Gundy said. “Is he going to play [Kevin] Garnett, [Mason] Plumlee and [Andray] Blatche? Is he going to play them all? Is he going to up the minutes of his main guys and play everybody mid-to-high 30s? Joe Johnson, Deron Williams, Pierce, or is he going to try to keep the minutes down?
“I think that, to me, is what I’m most curious to see.”