TORONTO — This will sting, but it shouldn’t stagger. The Nets came here for a split, and they got a split. They could have swept, probably should have swept, and that will annoy them, and aggravate them, and agitate them, and it shouldn’t matter a bit.
The Nets came here to deliver a very simple, specific message: We’re better than you. You may have been one of the best stories of this NBA season. You may have gone from tankers to tough guys in the course of six months, may have won the division, all of that. Good for you.
But we’re better than you.
“There are a lot of positive things we’ve done these first two games,” coach Jason Kidd said when this 100-95 loss to the Raptors was done, when Toronto evened the series at a game apiece by rallying back from a five-point deficit at a time when it seemed the Nets were on the verge of sneaking back to Brooklyn with a two-game cushion. “Now we just have to go home, and protect home.”
They had the Raptors down and muttering to themselves. They had played as poorly as you can fathom for the game’s first 24 minutes, should have been down 16 but were only down six, then started to put a professional hit on the home team. The Raptors had consumed themselves with so many outside issues, from the refs to the shot clock to the odd flickers of conspiracy.
The Nets were there. They were right there.
“We were right where we wanted to be,” Kidd said. “We just couldn’t get the shots to fall this time.”
They settled for the split, and that ought to be enough. If they are as good as they believe they are, if their attitude matches their ambition, then it should be an easy assignment this weekend: Win Friday, win Sunday, seize control of the series, and turn the Raptors into ghosts for the charter flight home.
“We know we can compete with them,” said Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan, who torched the Nets for 30 points. “We know we can beat them.”
They do now, because the Nets couldn’t finish them Tuesday night, because Paul Pierce couldn’t flick on the magic switch, spending the game’s first 3 ½ quarters in a slumber, rising to convert two old-fashioned three-point plays to throw the fear of Truth in them, but ultimately missing an open 3 that would have given the Nets the lead with 24.9 seconds left in the game.
That shot drops, we might never hear a peep out of the Raptors again. If the Nets were able to build on the five-point lead they enjoyed a minute into the fourth quarter, this weekend would be a mere formality. And the thing is? It should already be. The Raptors were a splendid regular-season story, they are gritty and easy to root for, which is why the Air Canada Centre can sound like the inside of a 747 engine when the home team is on a roll.
But you could sense they were waiting — anticipating — for Pierce to do something to break their hearts, waiting for Kevin Garnett to do something to buckle their knees, waiting for Joe Johnson or Deron Williams or Andrei Kirilenko, who was fabulous in 20 minutes after his return from one-game asylum, to do something to send them reeling into the abyss.
Instead, it was the Raptors who wound up making every key play. At 85-85, under 3 minutes left, it was DeRozan’s pull-up 20-footer that gave the Raptors the lead for good. At 89-87, the shot clock melting to zero, it was Kyle Lowry who drove through the heart of the Nets defense to beat the buzzer. And it was Amir Johnson who put the final exclamation point on things, 16.9 seconds to go, driving and dunking before the Nets could foul him.
“What we had to remind ourselves,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said, “is that we absolutely belong here. We respect the Nets. But we’re not here by accident.”
They were chippy and chirpy and you can understand why, and now it’s on the Nets to bring them careening back to reality. It’s doubtful Billy King will try to hold serve with Masai Ujiri out on Flatbush Avenue Friday. The Nets will simply host two basketball games this weekend. By Monday morning, they should have full control of the series. And as far as they’re concerned, the reason ought to be simple.
We’re better than you.