NBA: Raptors and Nets have playoff history, but a lot has changed since 2014

If only there was a Jurassic Park audience for Masai Ujiri to speak to.

Ujiri’s Raptors will face the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the NBA playoffs beginning next week, evoking memories of the team president rallying fans with an “Eff Brooklyn” comment before Game 1 of a 2014 series between the teams.

That didn’t work too well — the Raptors lost that game and the series in a dramatic seventh-game buzzer-beating finish — but it likely won’t be needed in the relative calm of the NBA’s campus on the Disney grounds outside Orlando.

Regardless of what happens in their final seeding games, the Raptors will be second in the East and the Nets seventh, setting up a best-of-seven series that will begin early next week.

Toronto locked in its spot by beating Memphis on Sunday, hours before Brooklyn wrapped up the No. 7 seed with a win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Raptors won three of four regular-season games with Brooklyn, but that won’t mean much once the playoffs begin.

Brooklyn has been ravaged with injuries and opt-outs since the season resumed. The Nets won’t have Kevin Durant (achilles), Kyrie Irving (shoulder), DeAndre Jordan (opt out), Spencer Dinwiddie (opt out), Taurean Prince (opt out), Wilson Chandler (opt out), Michael Beasley (COVID-19) or Nic Claxton (shoulder) available.

The Nets, however, still managed to win four of their first six seeding games to hold off No. 8 Orlando.

The Raptors have yet to really turn their attention to the series.

“I think they’re playing really well,” coach Nick Nurse said on Monday.

“I’ve seen them a little bit, obviously. They’re winning and playing good — got a lot of energy and stuff going — but I don’t really have a lot to give you yet until I dig into them a little bit. Sorry about that.”