Here are three thoughts on the Nets’ 96-95 victory over the Heat in Miami Wednesday night:
1. These guys are legit. It’s hard to think anything else after watching the Nets – missing Kevin Garnett and Andrei Kirilenko – go into Miami and win their third game this season over the two-time defending champion Heat, who had their full complement of players available.
Going back to the beginning of the Nets’ turnaround at the start of 2014, they have had several big-ticket victories – over the Thunder, Warriors, Heat and Spurs. But each of those victories came with an asterisk: the Thunder were missing Russell Westbrook, the Warriors were at the end of a very long road trip playing on the second half of back-to-back, the Heat were missing Dwyane Wade and the Spurs were missing basically everyone.
No such qualifiers can be placed on this win, though. The Nets beat a full-strength Heat team while not at full strength themselves. The Nets are 23-9 since the start of 2014, the best record in the East and tied for fourth-best in the NBA over that span.
And with only six of their final 19 games coming against teams with records at .500 or better, chances are the Nets (33-30) will be able to make a run at something close to their 49-33 record from last season – which is remarkable considering the team opened the season by going 10-21.
2. Paul Pierce got a lot of the headlines for his brilliant performance, but Mirza Teletovic had a huge impact for the Nets as well. He finished with 17 points off the bench, including hitting a pair of huge – and deep – 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to keep the Nets in front while Pierce was resting on the bench.
Teletovic has struggled a lot over the past several weeks, and has sat around the entire second half in recent games after enduring a rough first half. But after Teletovic had a strong first half against the Heat, Kidd took a chance with him out there in the fourth quarter and Teletovic delivered.
The Nets have been getting contributions from up and down the roster throughout their recent winning kick, and this was just the latest example of that.
3. This also was the latest stellar performance from Shaun Livingston, who has been a revelation all season long. He continued it Wednesday by finishing with 13 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three steals and a block, and made the play of the game by tipping the ball away from LeBron James on the final play.
Livingston’s long and remarkable journey back from a devastating knee injury began in Miami a few years ago, and he made an impression on Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who spoke at length about Livingston’s resurgence before Wednesday’s game.
“Love to see it,” Spoelstra said. “He’s a great pro, a great guy … only those type of players – Shaun, Greg Oden – only they can relate to what they’ve been through. It was a long road. We all rooted for him to get to this point because you’ve seen all the time he put in behind the scenes.
“Most guys can’t relate to having something stripped away from them at such a young age, something you love to do and something you can’t control in your prime, but you just have to keep on forging. Some people are able to do that, and it really shows his fortitude and resilience to be able to keep on pushing and now he’s having a great year.”