NBA

Nets’ goal: Get it back to Barclays

Barring another wild overtime period or three, the Nets are 48 minutes away from returning home to Brooklyn — not for an offseason of golf, fishing and relaxation, but for more playoff basketball.

The Nets played Game 5 on Monday night at Barclays Center — a 110-91 pull-away victory over the Bulls — like a team poised to return there for a Game 7 on Saturday.

That leaves Game 6 Thursday night at the United Center as the bridge from Chicago back to Brooklyn and then to Miami, where the Nets are hoping for a date with the top-seeded Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

One of the secrets to the Nets bringing the series back to Brooklyn is playing desperate — the way they played Monday night but did not play at home in Game 2 following their 17-point blowout win in Game 1.

“We didn’t handle the success from Game 1,’’ Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo said Tuesday. “If we get complacent at all or feel good about ourselves because we got a good win [Monday] night, we’re not going to be coming back for Game 7. We have to do a lot better job of handling the [Monday] win than we did our other win. That mindset could be extremely important.’’

That mindset will bring the Nets back to Brooklyn for Game 7.

Starved for the home-court edge most NBA teams have, the Nets waited patiently for their long-anticipated move into Barclays Center for the 2012-2013 season.

When I talked to then-Nets coach Avery Johnson before the 2011-2012 season, the team’s last in New Jersey, he spoke longingly about the impending move to Brooklyn because it finally was going to bring the wayward franchise to a home that would be a competitive advantage.

Johnson did not make it to the New Year before being replaced by Carlesimo on Dec. 27 with the team floundering at 14-14. But, under Carlesimo, Brooklyn has provided what Johnson always envisioned — a competitive advantage.

The Nets never had a true home-court advantage in the Meadowlands, despite playing there from 1981-2010, because they were always second-class citizens to the Knicks. They didn’t hang around the Prudential Center long enough (two seasons) to build one. Nassau Coliseum? No way. Piscataway? Please.

Based on their nomadic existence, you can argue the Nets never truly have had a home-court advantage in their 37 NBA seasons.

Brooklyn has changed that. The Nets went 26-15 at Barclays in the regular season and blew out the Bulls in Game 1 before the stumble in Game 2 — a loss that opened the door to the 3-1 hole they were in before Monday’s win.

Now, down 3-2, there is a feeling among the Nets that a win in Chicago against the banged-up Bulls gets them halfway to Miami thanks to the home-court edge Brooklyn would give them in Game 7.

An underlying nugget of confidence the Nets bring to the United Center tomorrow night is the understanding that, if not for Nate Robinson’s remarkable take-over performance in the fourth quarter of Game 4 (scoring 23 of his 34 points), they would be trying to close out the Bullsinstead of trying to avoid elimination.

The Nets, who lost Game 4 in triple overtime, were nicked by a mere three points in Game 3 in Chicago (79-76). So they hardly go back there wondering whether they can beat the Bulls on the road. They go there knowing they can win — and with an even more positive feeling that if they can get the series back to Brooklyn, they’re moving on to Miami.

In the words of the late, great Beastie Boys founding member Adam Yauch, whose life was taken away far too young by cancer a year ago this Saturday: “No Sleep till Brooklyn.’’