With a chance to advance, 76ers intend to be greedy

Look to close out Nets at home on Tuesday night in Game 5

CAMDEN, N.J. >> The 76ers didn’t want to slip past the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs. They didn’t want to survive. They didn’t want to back into the second round. They wanted to dominate. “Coach (Brett Brown) has said over and over again that we have to be greedy,” Tobias Harris said Monday, before practice. “We have to have that mentality.”

With that approach, the Sixers will look Tuesday night at 8 to finish their series with flourish, a message and, perhaps, an opportunity to have a day or two of rest. Already having won their last three, including a Games 3 and 4 in Brooklyn, the Sixers realize the danger of allowing the Nets to begin a rally. They also realize something else: That it is possible.

Wasn’t it only recently that they were booed off that very Wells Fargo Center floor after a lackluster, 111-102 Game 1 loss? And should the Nets be as successful in Game 5, the series would bounce back to New York, where a Nets victory would reduce it to a single-elimination risk.

It’s why Brown has said it is dangerous to consider the concept of “house money,” just because the Sixers are ahead, 3-1, in the best-of-seven.

“Our mindset coming is that we know we are going to play a team that is going to play hard,” J.J. Redick said. “They are going to play desperate. We expect them to be at their best. So the mindset is we have to be at our best to put this behind us.”

The Sixers have been at their best, or close to it, through a boo-dousing three-game winning streak. They were particularly impressive late in a 112108 victory Saturday at Barclays Center, using a big lineup in a telling fourth quarter rally that carried the potential to deflate the sixth-seeded Nets. However, since the series has taken

GREEDY >> PAGE 3

MARY ALTAFFER — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid, left, passes the ball around Brooklyn Nets guard Treveon Graham during the second half of Game 4 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, Saturday.