This has been the Nets’ biggest problem the whole time, right from the start: They expect to be viewed as a team rich with accomplishment, deep in achievement, when the reality is that this is a franchise that has gone 10 years since winning a playoff series.
Individually, of course, they have earned certain entitlements, some of them. Individually there are scores of splendid playoff memories to draw upon, whether we’re talking about the coach or the point guard or the duo that was supposed to signal a sea change of culture and professionalism.
Collectively, this is what they’ve done:
They’ve finished in sixth place in a historically weak Eastern Conference. They have won two playoff games together. And now, after this desultory 87-79 defeat to the Raptors, they have lost two games together, they have squandered home court together, and together they are damned fortunate they are not going back to Toronto down three games to one.
“We came out flat, no energy,” guard Shaun Livingston said, “and that’s unacceptable for a playoff game.”
But it is clearly representative of what these Nets have been far too often this season. What will drive Nets fans to the brink of their wits was a second straight fourth quarter when the Nets barely looked competent enough not to trip over the lines on the court, a second straight endgame in which they looked, in a word, terrified. They survived Friday. They weren’t quite as lucky this time.
But what’s even more telling was the immediate 13-4 hole they found themselves in, which swelled to 28-14 before the end of the first quarter and 47-30 with 5 ½ minutes left in the half. The Nets simply aren’t good enough, haven’t been through enough skirmishes together, to believe they can flick a switch on and off the way, say, the Heat can.
“I thought this was out of character for us,” coach Jason Kidd said.
Actually, this is absolutely in character. So many times this year the Nets would follow up a feel-good win with a head-scratching loss and there would always be an excuse: This guy was resting, we’re managing the regular season, we’re saving our bullets for the playoffs. Again: The Spurs can do that. The Heat can do that. As recently as last year, the Celtics of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett could do that.
And it is an attitude that spilled over neatly into the playoffs, too. The Nets absolutely bought in to the notion that regardless of Toronto’s home-court advantage, they were blessed with something even more valuable: experience. The word became something of a sacred mantra, especially after Pierce and Garnett helped drive them home in Game 1.
Now? Now this is Pierce, talking about experience after the Raptors outplayed them down the stretch for a third straight game: “Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t play.”
You don’t say?
“You can learn,” Pierce said, “on the fly.”
And the Raptors have learned. DeMar DeRozan was the best player on the floor after looking scared of his own shadow back in Game 1. Kyle Lowry on one leg was twice the player Sunday night that Deron Williams was on two. The Raptors missed 16 out of 17 at one point, were outscored 28-6 at one point, were about to be chased into the East River by 17,732 rabid fans …
And won anyway. Apparently all that experience doesn’t buy as much as it used to. Maybe it’s the exchange rate.
“We’re getting better every single night,” Lowry said, and the truth of that has to make the Nets shudder. In reality, this game was the series in miniature: It would’ve behooved the Nets to crush the Raptors quickly, same as when the game was there to be won in the third quarter the Nets should’ve blown them apart.
Strike one, strike two. The Nets keep waiting for their season to happen to them, and for them. They actually talked about how disappointed they were by the Barclays Center atmosphere Friday, this as they tried to give those fans a collective cardiac arrest by choking away most of a 13-point lead.
Seriously? You’d better have a résumé and a reputation before you start wandering into those precincts. The Nets have neither, not together, not yet. Together, this is what they’ve done: They’ve finished in sixth place.
Together, this is what they look like four games into the playoffs:
A sixth-place team.