The Nets did everything they could to miss the playoffs, but the ineptitude of the Eastern Conference proved to be too much to overcome.
Thanks to the combination of a 101-88 victory over the Magic in Brooklyn and the Pacers’ 95-83 loss in Memphis, the Nets managed to find a way to make it to the postseason for the third year in a row.
Unlike the previous two seasons, however, when they went into the playoffs facing toss-up matchups with the Bulls and Raptors, the Nets will be heavy underdogs against the Eastern Conference-leading Hawks in a series that will tip-off Sunday afternoon in Atlanta.
A subplot of that series will be the fact the Hawks will be swapping first-round picks with the Nets this season — meaning Atlanta will pick 15th overall while Brooklyn will be at No. 29 — as one of the final pieces of the trade that brought Joe Johnson to the Nets in 2012.
“That was three years ago,” Johnson said. “There are two guys left on [the Hawks] who I played with. … I’m happy for those guys, and what they’ve accomplished.
“Obviously Atlanta is home away from home for me, but would I love to go down there and play spoiler? Yes. I’m going to try to go down there and have a good performance game-in and game-out. We have to try to come together and have a good performance collectively, and play together as a team.”
It seemed for large stretches of Wednesday’s game, however, as if the Nets wouldn’t be getting to the postseason at all. They spent almost all of the first three quarters trailing a hopeless Magic team that even managed to lose to the Knicks at home Saturday night. That made it hard for anyone who didn’t know the teams’ records to determine which one was the one fighting for its playoff life.
“There are times when I know we’re not getting out of here alive,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said, “but most of the time, I just coach the game. I keep trying to find lineups that work.
“For me, this is kind of morbid, but it’s always like somebody who is going to be in a car crash. You’re not thinking, ‘I’m going to die.’ You’re thinking, ‘What can I do to avoid this crash?’ That’s kind of how I look at the games. I don’t look at it and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to lose because we’re down 12.’ I just keep trying to find something until time runs out.”
He did manage to find something that worked in Bojan Bogdanovic, who scored a career-high 28 points, including 22 through the first three quarters to help keep the Nets in the game.
Once Orlando predictably fell apart in the fourth quarter, the Nets took advantage, going on a 21-6 run to turn an 80-77 deficit into a 98-86 lead with 2:48 left. That sent the fans in attendance home happy and the Nets themselves to the locker room knowing their fate was no longer in their hands.
“It’s a nice feeling to get a career-high,” Bogdanovic said, “but it’s not the most important thing for us. We have to wait for the other game to be in the playoffs.”
Wait they did, with several players sticking around to watch on the big screen television in the lounge inside the locker room, waiting to see if Hollins’ old team in Memphis would do him and his new club a favor.
About two hours later, the Nets got the news they had spent the entire season waiting to find out — after doing everything they could to give it away, a postseason berth was theirs.