Nets ‘endured’, now they hope to thrive

Brooklyn ready for postseason showdown vs. Philadelphia

April 11, 2023 John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Mikal Bridges and the playoff-bound Nets are getting ready to tussle with the 76ers in Philadelphia this weekend. AP Photo by Jessie Alcheh

Share this:

A season that has already featured the jettisoning of superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, a new-look roster that took a while to come together and an impressive drive toward the postseason just when things looked bleakest for Brooklyn is beginning anew on Saturday night in Philadelphia.

And the Nets can’t wait.

“This group just endured,” Brooklyn head coach Jacque Vaughn said after his resilient unit captured the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference last Friday night in Downtown Brooklyn vs. Orlando.

“I mean, we chose to be courageous over comfort many times and that’s hard to do in this league,” Vaughn added.

The Nets (45-37) spent this past offseason warding off Durant’s trade demands and dealing with Irving’s disillusionment over not receiving a long-term extension.

The dynamic duo played brilliantly in guiding Brooklyn toward the top of the Eastern Conference until February, when Durant got dealt to Phoenix and Irving wound up in Dallas.

The players coming back to the Nets, Mikal Bridges, Cameron Johnson, Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith, took a while to get acclimated to their new environs.

But when the season was on the line following a five-game losing streak from March 14-23, Brooklyn rose from the ashes and secured an automatic berth into a first-round playoff series.

Bridges, who averaged a team-best 26.1 points per contest, spearheaded the Nets to a 6-2 finish before Sunday’s meaningless loss to the 76ers at Barclays Center.

Last year, the Nets settled for the No. 7 seed after beating Cleveland in the play-in tournament, but were swept out of the playoffs in four games by eventual Eastern Conference champion Boston in the opening round.

Spencer Dinwiddie and the Nets grabbed an automatic berth to a first-round playoff series by beating Orlando Friday night in Downtown Brooklyn. AP Photo by Mary Altaffer

This season’s squad needs only to win a single game in a postseason series to exceed what the Nets managed in the 2022 playoffs with Durant and Irving in tow.

But that’s the lowest expectation for a team that appears fully capable of challenging the third-seeded Sixers (54-28) in a best-of-seven series for the right to advance to the East semifinals.

“Now again, we have to come together, new system, new city, all of the other stuff, so it’s not going to be an easy task by any stretch and they have the probable MVP (Joel Embiid),” Dinwiddie said of Philadelphia.

”So again, like I said, there’s an appropriate respect, give Philly their credit, but at the same time we do feel like we belong in that arena.”

The Nets went 0-4 against Philadelphia during the regular season, but the teams will start at 0-0 on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. for Game 1 at the Wells Fargo Center.

Bridges, who extended his games played streak to begin his career to an eye-popping 392 on Sunday after competing in his 83rd contest of the year, will try to continue thriving in the lead scoring role after putting up at least 40 points three times since his arrival.

But Brooklyn will have to contend with former Net James Harden, who was traded to the City of Brotherly Love by the Nets in February 2022.

Harden led the league in assists (10.7 per contest), but has been dealing with a sore left Achilles down the stretch.

“He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do,” Sixers head coach Doc Rivers of Harden. “His assists are a career-high, as high as he’s ever been, 3-point field goal percentage.

“There’s a lot of people out there who thought that he would never do some of the things that he’s doing. Not as far as scoring, he can still do that, but as far as giving up scoring to run the team, and he’s doing that. He’s been great at it and I couldn’t be happier.”

Harden was formerly known as the Nets’ third superstar, when he, Durant and Irving chased a title together in 2020-21, falling short with a Game 7 loss to Milwaukee at Barclays in the conference semifinals.

Now, the Nets don’t have a single iconic name on their marquee.

But they do have a chance to prove it doesn’t take one to win a first-round playoff series.

“You look at teams seven, eight, nine, ten, they have an All-Star or multiple All-Stars on their team,” Vaughn noted. “And this sixth seed, the Brooklyn Nets, we did it in a very competitive and collective way as a group, as a team.”

Jacque Vaughn is all out of superstars, but ready to lead his “competitive” unit against the 76ers in the opening round of the NBA playoffs. AP Photo by Mary Altaffer

NOTHING BUT NET: Cam Thomas scored 46 points in Sunday’s regular-season finale vs. Philadelphia, making him just the fourth Net to put up at least 40 points four or more times in a single season. He joined John Williamson, Vince Carter and Irving on that list. … The league has not yet announced when Game 2 will be played, but it will also be in Philadelphia before the series returns to Barclays for Games 3 and 4.