Nets fighting to stave off play-in elimination
The doom and gloom of Wednesday’s rainy forecast is certainly an appropriate reflection of where the Nets currently stand, or rather where they are hanging on ever so slightly as their looming elimination day approaches.
After a brutal 133-111 loss to the Pacers on Monday night that saw the Nets outdone in every way coupled with the Hawks’ win against the Bulls, the Nets’ tragic number for elimination from a play-in postseason spot is down to one.
Despite their short-lived winning streak in March, those victories came too late.
Thus, their back-to-back matchup against the Pacers, which continues Wednesday at Barclays Center, could determine their fate.
“Yeah,” Mikal Bridges said when asked if there is more urgency Wednesday. “But, you can’t even look at that. However many games left, just play. … Just go out there and play hard and give it all you’ve got. Keep competing.”
If the Nets are ousted from the play-in race, it will be the first time the team has missed the playoffs since the 2017-18 season under former head coach Kenny Atkinson.
Those Nets were 28-54, awfully close to where the current squad sits (29-47) after failing to find a rhythm in a season plagued with another prolonged Ben Simmons absence.
“We gotta have a win,” Trendon Watford said after Monday’s loss. “[We’re] at home, so trying to protect home court. We just lost [Sunday] in the crib [to the Lakers.] We gotta come out and fight. We have nothing to lose. Just try to get in there.”
With only a travel day in between, the Nets will have to figure out a way to fix their transition defense quickly to have any chance against Indiana’s pace. It was the stat that dominated the postgame conversation Monday, and for good reason.
The Nets were outscored 23-6 in fast-break points, looking caught off guard by the fast pace, and as a result they failed to defend at half court.
“We got to get back in transition. That’s the No.1 key,” interim coach Kevin Ollie said. The start of Monday’s game foreshadowed what was to come, as the Nets scored the first two baskets of the game before the Pacers went on a 15-0 run. It came just a day after the Lakers opened with a 17-0 run at Barclays Center on Sunday.
Dennis Schroder was at a loss for words about the slow starts.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If we knew, we would make a difference.”
Bridges, who put up 19 points, was more blunt.
“I think transition defense is not on our side,” he said. “I don’t think we’re doing it well, and we might be confused, but we are just not good at it. We just got to be better. Their main thing is transition offense. They play fast. It was just tough.”
The confidence Ollie has expressed throughout his 22 games in charge has hardly been backed up by his team. He can only hope it starts to stick when it comes to transition play and all the late-game slip-ups that have tarnished the season.
“We have to fight back. Put on our gloves and keep swinging,” Ollie said. “We didn’t do that for a consistent stretch of this game, and you can’t do that against a great team like them.
“They going to play with they pace, and you have to fight back by getting huddles, executing, not turning the ball over and getting back in transition. And at the end of the day, we have to have shots go in . ... We got to play great games for us to win games. And we gotta do that for 48 minutes.”