MIAMI — As the Nets and Heat continued to prepare for the beginning of their best-of-seven showdown in the Eastern Conference semifinals Tuesday, both sides were asked plenty about — and immediately dismissed — the Nets’ pristine 4-0 record against the two-time defending champions during the regular season.
The reasons on both sides are obvious. For the Heat, they aren’t about to show any respect to any opponent — let alone one featuring their two most loathed rivals, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett — after a few meaningless regular season games, especially after going through the rigors of three straight Finals trips and back-to-back titles.
For the Nets, a team full of veterans with plenty of playoff experience, they know those four wins don’t change the fact they need four more to become the first team to defeat the Heat in a postseason series since coach Jason Kidd’s Mavericks in the 2011 Finals.
But, at the same time, make no mistake: The Nets enter this series confident they can give the two-time defending champs a run for their money, that they possess the combination of talent and experience to potentially end their run of dominance.
“The goal hasn’t changed since the beginning of the season,” Pierce said on Monday. “Our goal when we came in here at the beginning was to win a championship. We understand that in order to do that, you’ve got to go through the best and Miami being that team over the last couple of years, we figured this was going to be a test for us.
“This was going to be a series that we would have to see if we are going to accomplish our goal … we feel like we are ready for whoever.”
The four meetings between the Nets and Heat this season were decided by as thin a margin as possible — the Nets claimed three one-point victories, and the fourth went to double overtime in Brooklyn before the Nets came away with the win. But there were tangible things to take away from those four matchups that the Nets took advantage of, beginning with their impressive size and length on the wings.
Ever since the Heat fully embraced the smallball look that so much of the league — including the Nets — has adopted over the last couple seasons, teams have tried to attack the Heat with size inside. But while that has worked to varying degrees, the Nets had great success this season by being able to throw one of several players — including Pierce, Joe Johnson, Shaun Livingston, Alan Anderson and Andrei Kirilenko — at LeBron James and Dwyane Wade throughout the game.
“I think it helps,” Deron Williams said. “It gives them different looks. If you sit there and play one guy on LeBron the whole game, give him one look … good luck.
“You got to try different guys on him. You have to pay attention to where he’s at. Same thing with Dwyane … both those guys, if they get going, if they get hot, they’re hard to stop.”
Along those lines, the Nets relied on their depth throughout the season when they played the Heat. After using the amnesty provision to eliminate Mike Miller’s salary and regression by several key contributors this season, including Shane Battier and Norris Cole, the Heat don’t have the same kind of bench they have had previously.
The Nets, on the other hand, played 10 or 11 guys in every one of their seven games against Toronto — an unheard of number of players for a team to regularly play in the postseason, when teams usually trim their rotation to eight players, nine at most.
“We’re going to need everybody on board, just like in this last series [when] everybody contributed,” Kidd said. “We’re going to need to throw different people at different guys and keep rotating and hopefully we can wear them down somehow.”
Then there’s the turnover factor. Since switching to their smallball lineup back in January, the Nets have become one of the league’s best teams at forcing turnovers. But they have had success against the Heat all season long, forcing them into plenty of giveaways across the four games — including 17 for James alone.
That is essential for the Nets against Miami in this series, as it helps keep the Heat from getting out in the open floor and scoring in transition. The two teams played at a slow pace during the four regular season meetings — which is a decided advantage for the older Nets.
“We can switch up our matchups and put different guys on some of their key players just to kind of slow them down,” Livingston said. “Obviously they got some tough matchups and those guys are pretty much impossible to stop one on one. But just making it hard for them, understanding mentally what we are trying to get accomplished on both ends of the floor.”