J. Kidd Is Playing With Fire…(Heat Pun Intended)

The bizarre Eastern Conference regular season finally comes to an end tonight. Playoff bound teams are purposely losing games for seeding. One team that needs to stop this madness is the Brooklyn Nets.

I have no idea what Jason Kidd is thinking but he is making a grave mistake by treading down the path he has his team going on now. The Nets are looking at things all wrong as far as whom they want to play to ultimately get to the NBA Finals.

The Nets are trying to secure the 6 seed so they can play the Toronto Raptors. Granted the Nets play them well and should get through that series I would imagine in 6 games, but the Raptors are a very good team.

The Raptors have a very young and talented back-court with DeMar Derozan and Kyle Lowry. They have Terrance Ross and Amir Johnson who are some other really good young pieces.

Their coach Dwane Casey will preach to them over and over again that they are the underdogs and have nothing to lose.

So to recap, the Nets might have to play a young, talented, hungry Raptors team with absolutely nothing to lose. Meaning the Raptors will play carefree basketball and just enjoy watching the Nets sweat.

Fine, let’s say the Nets get past the Raptors in 6 games. Their next opponent would be the reigning world champion Miami Heat. And this is where I am most perplexed by what the Nets are trying to do here. 

Maybe the Nets do not have the use of Google, and can’t go back and look at what happened in last year’s playoffs. Last season, the Heat swept the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round and were off for what felt like a month.

I think at one point the Heat even went on a cruise or something. The Nets on the other hand drew the Chicago Bulls and it went seven grueling games and eventually lost.

In the next round the Bulls played a Miami Heat team that just came off 8 days of rest. Chicago won Game 1, which was fools gold because the Heat were rusty. The Heat peeled off four straight against the Bulls in route to winning their second straight championship. 

This is exactly the same scenario. The Heat are not going to struggle against the Bobcats, let’s be serious.

The Bobcats have had a very impressive season and Al Jefferson is an absolute stud and I am a big fan of Kemba Walker. But they’re playing the Miami Heat. The Bobcats might win one game, and even that is a stretch.

I’m banking on a straight sweep by a team that has been here three times before in the Heat. 

Then the Heat will be in nice warm Miami Beach, living it up and resting. The Nets on the other hand will be in the cold weather traveling back and forth to Canada to run around with a bunch of young legs. This is a serious miscalculation on the part of the Nets brain trust.

I understand the Nets were 4-0 against the Heat this season and I think that’s great. But they aren’t sweeping the Heat in a two-week time span, no way. Their best course of action would be to try to get to the Eastern Conference Finals and battle the Heat there, and here’s why.

No one really knows what shape Dwyane Wade’s knees and back are in. He might have missed all these games just as a precaution but it’s still a grueling two months of playoff basketball ahead of him.

I would rather the Nets play Wade after two playoff series than one. It’s not a guarantee that Wade will be hampered by injury, but I would rather a slow downed Wade than one on 8 days rest any day.

If Wade is healthy, no one is beating Miami, and that’s not debatable.

With a slowed down Wade I think there is a slight possibility; it’s not likely, but there is a chance. Especially with guys like Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce who make it their business to hate LeBron James and Ray Allen, the possibility to grind out wins would be present.

The Nets need to secure the 5^th seed and avoid the Heat in round two at all cost. If not, then they would have made a great second half of the season run, but will come up short in about 6 games in a series against the Heat. And if the Nets can’t stop the Heat, it’s safe to say no one can. 

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