It’s not even the All-Star break yet, and the Nets have already won more games than they were predicted to all season.
Get used to it, they say.
This supposedly tanking team is enjoying winning, eyeing the play-in, not the lottery.
The Nets beat the 76ers, 100-96, before 16,133 at Barclays Center, their sixth victory in their last seven games.
And they don’t give a damn how much it vexes the pro-tanking crowd.
“We don’t care. We do not care what they say about that,” Cam Johnson said. “The 15, 18 guys on his team have a job to do, and our job is to not try to get a draft pick. Our job is simply to win basketball games, the basketball games that are in front of us, and that’s what we’re going to put our full effort towards. We don’t care about all that other noise.
“If that’s what they think, then they’re not really a fan. They don’t want us to succeed. You’re going to ask our own players to lose? We’re not going to do that. We’re out there to compete, to win every game.”
This win pulled the Nets (20-34) just 1 ½ games behind 10th-place Chicago in the East for the final play-in spot.
They’re six behind No. 4 Charlotte and a daunting 6 ½ out of a top-three spot where the chances for the top overall pick become flattened.
In short, Cooper Flagg is looking more like a mirage than a target.
But these players won’t care. Not after D’Angelo Russell (22 points, five rebounds, four ᴀssists) and Nic Claxton (13 points, 11 rebounds, five blocks) and a dominant defense have put the play-in within touching distance.
“Yeah, definitely. We wanna get there. We wanna get to the playoffs,” said Claxton, acutely aware that many of their fans want the opposite. “We don’t care. We’re compeтιтors. We put so much time in. We’ve been grinding our whole life to get to this stage. We could care less about draft picks. We don’t care.
“We’re not naïve to it. The fans are upset when we win. That’s just what it is. It’s just a part of it. But we work so hard every single day, so we can’t try to lose games. We’re gonna go out and try to win every game. But I understand where the fans are coming from. I feel why they would want us to lose this year and everything. I feel them. But we want to win.”
Brooklyn held the Sixers to 43.2 percent shooting and 8-of-33 from deep, winning 50-38 on the glᴀss.
Granted, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey didn’t play, but the Nets harᴀssed Paul George into just two points on 1-of-7 shooting.
Russell helped Brooklyn build an 11-point lead.
And even after falling behind 58-57 on Quentin Grimes’ 3 with 8:30 left in the quarter, the Nets had an answer.
The Nets тιԍнтened the defensive screws in a 12-2 run.
They held the Sixers to 1-for-8 shooting with three turnovers to take command for good.
Claxton had back-to-back blocks, leading to a fast break by Trendon Watford (18 points, three steals) and a 67-60 edge.
Then the center’s layup made it 69-60 with 3:47 left in the third.
The Nets padded the lead to 15 points in the fourth before a nervy end.
Kelly Oubre Jr. and Grimes shared game-high honors with 30 for the Sixers.
It’s been a stunning turnaround for the Nets.
On Dec. 27, Brooklyn was 14-33 — just a half-game behind Charlotte for fourth in the lottery odds and only two away from a top-three spot.
The play-in didn’t even seem like a possibility at the time, six games out.
But things have changed, the Nets having exceeded their projected win total before even reaching the All-Star break.
“We were written off early,” Johnson said. “Our projected win total was lower than what we have now going into the break. It doesn’t mean we accomplished anything, but it means we’re trending in the right direction.”