Nets vs. the clock
The Nets won’t be up against just the other teams in the Eastern Conference through the final 10 games of the regular season, they’ll be up against time.
And as they continue to struggle to find an identity with their new-look roster, that precious time is running out.
“You really don’t get the chance to do that until you go through a training camp and you spend time with each other and you learn about each other,” head coach Jacque Vaughn told The Post on Wednesday. “We’re trying to do it on the fly. We’re trying to expedite our jelling, that’s just the hand we’ve been dealt right now. Where we are, we accept that and look forward to the challenge.”
After a 115-109 loss to the Cavaliers on Tuesday, the Nets fell to just 7-11 since both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant were traded. They have had a month-and-ahalf to adjust to their new core of Mikal Bridges, Spencer Dinwiddie, Cameron Johnson and Dorian Finney-Smith, who all arrived in the two blockbuster trades.
Since the trade deadline, the Nets have fallen from the No. 5 seed to the No. 6 seed, leapfrogged by the Knicks, who were 3 ¹/₂ games behind the Nets when Durant was traded to the Suns and now lead them by two games.
More importantly, the Nets have gone from 3 ¹/₂ games clear of the unwanted play-in tournament to a virtual tie with the Heat for the No. 7 seed, the play-in cutoff, following Miami’s win over the Knicks on Wednesday night. The Nets (39-33, .542) are still .001 ahead of the Heat (40-34, .541) and own the tiebreaker.
With a rematch against the Cavaliers on Thursday night before a trip to face the Heat on Saturday, the Nets can’t afford to wait any longer to figure out how to get this new group going consistently.
“It’s not easy,” Vaughn said. “But I continue to stress to our team that it’s not an excuse not to get it done. Maybe it takes a little bit more, a little bit more of your time, a little bit more of your persistence, a little bit more of your effort to get it done, but it can be done.”
The Nets are stuck in a four-game losing streak, their second such skid since Irving and Durant departed.
To snap the skid, they get another crack at the Cavaliers, against whom they split their two previous games this year. The No. 4-seeded Cavaliers, according to Cleveland.com, said they would prefer to play the Nets in the first round of the playoffs over the Knicks, against which they are currently matched.
During Cleveland’s win Tuesday, the Nets had no answer for Donovan Mitchell, who poured in 31 points and resembled the type of star they now glaringly lack.
The Cavaliers, however, aren’t at the top of the Nets’ concerns. First, they have to make sure they can even get into the proper playoff field.
Perhaps the two most important games in that quest await them next.
“The biggest thing that’s hovering over us is trying to get a win,” Vaughn said. “That’s the most important thing. I don’t think we complicate it any more than that. Pretty simple as a team with our motives and what our goals are, and that’s to win the next game. We don’t know what the standings are going to look like at the end of this thing. On a nightly basis it’s changing.
“At the end of the day, that’s the great thing about basketball, it teaches you life lessons also. What do you do? For us, we have four losses in a row. Are you defeated? Or do you realize who you are?”
Cameron Johnson knows what’s required for the Nets to get where they want to go. And despite the team’s slide since he arrived in Brooklyn, Johnson is adamant the Nets can achieve feats similar to those the Suns accomplished when he was with them.
The 27-yearold forward was acquired by the Nets from Phoenix, along with Mikal Bridges and four first-round picks, last month in the blockbuster Kevin Durant trade.
Johnson was part of two playoff runs the past two seasons with the Suns, who reached the NBA Finals and then the Western Conference semifinals.
“Obviously, combining a couple players, there’s some things we have to iron out,” Johnson said Wednesday. “We’ve got guys that compete, guys that play hard and you’re gonna start seeing us build this thing together.”
The Nets announced a new partnership with New York City Public Schools on Wednesday to expand their community-based basketball clinics. As part of the effort, the Nets and the WNBA’s Liberty will provide basketball clinics free-of-charge to public elementary and middle schools in Brooklyn.
Johnson, along with head coach Jacque Vaughn and CEO Sam Zussman, made the trip Wednesday to P.S. 001 The Bergen in Sunset Park, just down the block from the team’s practice facility, to kick off the program.
“It’s huge, because it’s a reflection of doing your part in the community,” Vaughn told The Post. “I’ve really tried to dive into being a resident of Brooklyn and there is no better way than to bring the game of basketball, have a relationship with the Department of Education and hopefully a lot of kids get exposed to this beautiful game.”
Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who was teammates with Kyrie Irving in Boston and is the vice president of the players’ union, was critical of the Nets when they suspended Irving for tweeting a link to an anti-Semitic film in November. Brown doubled down on his sentiment in an interview with The Ringer on Tuesday.
“I feel like what the Brooklyn Nets did … it was inappropriate,” Brown said. “I think it was like a public ransom note almost,”