IT’S RAPTORS VS. NETS
Wild final night of season sees Raps clinch No. 3 seed despite defeat in New York
Toronto clinches third seed in East to seal playoff date with Brooklyn,
NEW YORK— It is not to suggest the Raptors are a defiant lot going into their first playoff series, but there is no question how they feel about facing the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday afternoon. Bring it on. And whether or not the Nets went in the tank to be sure to face the Raptors instead of the Chicago Bulls does not matter a lick to the players or coaches. “It should be fun,” said DeMar DeRozan after the intriguing firstround, best-of-seven matchup was set. “We’ve just got to go out there and play. Go out there, study the film, study them, get ready for them. We know we can beat them. We beat them twice this year and they beat them once without me playing. So like I said, it should be fun. “We understand that they’re experienced and everything but hey, who isn’t? Once you come in this league you’re going against players all season that are experienced in some way. You just have to find a way to win.” Game 1 will be Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at the Air Canada Centre with Game 2 on Tuesday night. Games 3 and 4 will be in Brooklyn a week from Friday and Sunday. Games 5, 6, 7 are April 30, May 2 and May 4, if necessary. The juicy Toronto-Brooklyn series became official on a juicy final night of the NBA regular season.
The Raptors actually clinched the third seed with about a quarter to go in their 95-92 loss to the New York Knicks when Chicago lost at Charlotte, and the Nets became the opponent when they were crushed by Cleveland about an hour later.
It leaves an Eastern Conference first round of Indiana-Atlanta, Miami-Charlotte, Toronto-Brooklyn and Chicago-Washington. But Raptors-Nets is rife with intrigue.
Dwane Casey against one of his favourite players, Jason Kidd, in the battle of coaches.
Kyle Lowry, an all-star snub, getting to face the guy many thought took his place in Joe Johnson.
The young Raptors versus the grizzled veteran Nets.
“They’re a very veteran team, they know how to play,” said Casey.
“They’re a possession team,” said Casey.
The Nets and Raptors split a fourgame regular-season series.
“You’ve got to go play. Experience is one thing but you’ve got to go play. You have to go out and compete, it’s why they play the games. Our guys are going to be ready.”
The experience factor will be hammered home before the series kicks off; the Nets have an abundance of it though the likes of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, while the Raptors barely have any. But the games aren’t played on reputation and past success, they are played in the cauldron that is the post-season.
“Whatever they did in the regular season doesn’t matter,” said Lowry. “It’s all a new season. I’m sure the coaching staff, the advanced scouts, they’ll give us what we’ve got to do. We’ll go out there, watch our film, make adjustments, get better and continue to play our game, not let them dictate the game.”
The Nets, clobbered at home on Monday night by the Knicks, rested six rotation players for the final game at Cleveland, in what some saw as a blatant attempt to fall to No. 6 and avoid a possible first-round matchup with Chicago that could lead to a second-round meeting with the Miami Heat. “In my experience, you have to be careful what you wish for,” Casey said before the game. “I’ve been in both situations and you think you want to play a certain team and all at once you start preparing for them and you say, ‘whoa, that team’s petty good.’ “The best way to approach it is to let the basketball gods decide, play your game. There is such a thing as resting your guys, make sure you don’t ramp their minutes up right before the playoffs, or try to save them if they have some nicks and bangs but that said, I think you go out to compete to win, and to try to finagle it ... I can’t coach that way.”