TORONTO — So this was it: 6.2 seconds to define a season, to divine whether this grand, expensive experiment could really yield something real, something tangible. Six-point-two seconds, and it looked and it felt like the Air Canada Centre was collapsing around the Nets, 20,457 inside and another 10,000 outside pleading, begging, beseeching.
Six-point-two seconds to South Florida or East Palookaville.
“That’s the time,” Kevin Garnett would say, “when you find a little something out about yourself.”
The Nets had spent much of the afternoon ransacking the Raptors, dominating them, they were up eight with just over three minutes left and still up seven with just under two to go and yet, somehow, here they were, up one slim point at 104-103, 6.2 seconds left, Toronto ball.
In the huddle, the message was simple.
“Fellas,” Jason Kidd said, “we need to get a stop.”
Sometimes coaching can be as basic as that, as easy as grasping hold of the obvious and selling it hard. The ACC was so loud his players had to read Kidd’s lips but they understood his message.
They’d all watched what happened Friday night, when the Rockets had gone all Keystone Kops on defense and allowed the Blazers’ Damian Lillard a sliver of space to make a bucket for the ages.
All of it with less than a second to go.
So what in the world could Kyle Lowry do with six times as much ballgame to fiddle with?
“You’re playing for your lives,” Paul Pierce would say.
For so much of Sunday afternoon that’s precisely how the Nets had played, all 11 men who stepped on the floor, all the coaches, shaking off an early deficit and seizing a sizable lead that was rarely threatened across the final 2 ½ quarters. Joe Johnson had been brilliant, scoring 11 straight points in the fourth quarter, at a moment when it seemed the Nets had finally crushed the
Raptors’ spirit.
Almost. Not quite. Now there were 6.2 seconds left in the game, in the season, in this quest that had taken so many unexpected turns across the past seven months. Now the ball was in Lowry’s hands, and if the Nets guessed there were other options in play — “We thought he’d get the ball to [DeMar] DeRozan,” Garnett said — it was clear Lowry wanted the ball, and wanted the moment.
Garnett recognized this, joined Deron Williams on a double-team as the clock clicked under five seconds. Lowry slithered free, but lost the ball as the number hit four. Garnett followed him.
Lowry recovered the ball. Under three. Under two.
Lowry rebooted. He squared as best he could to shoot.
And Pierce stood in front of him.
One of the reasons the Nets faced this critical crossroads at this moment was because Shaun Livingston had tried to inbound the ball to Pierce with 8.8 seconds left. Pierce couldn’t gather it in, and Terrence Ross made what could have been the most clutch play in Raptors history, tossing the ball off Pierce, and it ricocheted out of bounds.
Pierce had made a couple of 3s early, but had been mostly quiet. And now the game, the season, and this emerging star stood right in front of him.
“He didn’t have a great game,” Kidd said. “But it only takes one play to help a team win.”
Lowry didn’t have his legs after the fumble, couldn’t get his usual lift, and leaned in to try to draw contact. Maybe that would work against someone who hasn’t been in the league since 1998;
Pierce didn’t bite. He went straight up. He kept himself vertical.
And blocked the shot.
Ballgame. Series. Exhale.
And this veteran team, so many of its members having endured so many battles in their respective pasts, some of them with championship rings sitting in safe-deposit boxes? Well, they acted like a 15-seed knocking off a 2. Winning a game like this still summons the 12-year-old out of your soul.
“This was like the NCAA a little,” Kidd said. “You lose and you go home.”
No trip home, not yet, not with the itinerary to Miami already booked. Kidd ran the length of the floor to hug Williams, his protégé who had finally steered the Nets to a playoff series win —
“My Jimmy V moment,” he called it. Pierce blew kisses as he trotted off the court.
“We’re still trying to earn our respect,” Pierce said, “as a team and a franchise.”
Step one was over. Step two will start with their toes in the sand and their eyes fixed on the sky. The Nets would get the Heat. And, as important: the Heat will get the Nets. This ought to be a blast.