The Brooklyn Nets fell from perennial contender status to a fringe playoff team following the trades of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Through all the dysfunction of the last two-plus seasons, one viewpoint surrounding the Nets remained consistent: no one wanted to face them in a first-round series.
That fear factor dissipated with the departures of their two superstars. Cleveland.com's Chris Fedor reported Friday that the Cavaliers, whom the Nets will host for back-to-back matchups Tuesday and Thursday, would prefer Brooklyn as their first-round opponent:
“No one inside the organization would say this publicly — and they shouldn’t. But multiple people I’ve spoken to recently are privately hoping for a Brooklyn matchup,” Fedor wrote. “It’s easy to understand why… The Nets would be Cleveland’s easiest path out of round one.
Brooklyn was 32-20 at the time it dealt Kyrie Irving — a move that preceded Kevin Durant’s departure. While the Nets haven’t completely imploded since those two megadeals, their organizational ceiling has lowered considerably, and they no longer pose the same challenge in a seven-game series.”
The Nets sit two games behind the New York Knicks for fifth place in the Eastern Conference, with Cleveland the overwhelming favorite to finish fourth.
Brooklyn has posted a 6-10 record while ranking 26th in net rating with their new-look roster. Despite those growing pains, the report of the Cavs' first-round desire did not go unnoticed ahead of the two teams' matchup Tuesday:
“I heard something like that, too. I don’t know if they think it’s sweet, but we’ll match up with anybody,” said breakout center Nic Claxton via NetsDaily. “We just try to take it game by game, win as many games as we can and get as high a seed as possible. If that’s our matchup, then we’ll take care of it.”
Claxton has emerged as one of the league's top defenders this season. Another big man in that defensive class is Cavs center Jarrett Allen, a former teammate of Claxton's in Brooklyn. However, the 23-year-old did not mince words when asked about facing Allen:
“That’s always a good matchup for me,” he said. “I’ve been having battles against him since I’ve been in the league. Practice, training camp, you know? What he does on the court speaks for itself; he’s an elite rim protector, finishes around the rim. I just got to be the best version of myself.”
Spencer Dinwiddie also commented on Cleveland's first-round choice at shootaround:
“If I had the choice of playing a team that just got put together three weeks ago versus playing Giannis [Antetokounmpo], or something of that nature, I mean, I think that’d be the most logical answer you could give,” he said. “So, I don’t think it’s bulletin board material.”
While Dinwiddie downplayed the report, he did have this to say about Allen, whom he spent three seasons alongside in Brooklyn:
“As far as Jarrett Allen, I don’t think anybody in the Brooklyn Nets organization thinks he’s a good rebounder, or is scared of him at all.”
Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn said he did not bring up the report to his team. However, he did indicate it could be used as motivation should his team draw Cleveland in the first round:
“I did not. You never know what’s gonna happen,” he said. “I think if that happened that way we would address it at that time.”
With 11 games left in the regular season, the race for the fifth seed has come down to the Knicks, Nets and Miami Heat. Ironically, the Cavs' two-game series with Brooklyn will go a long way in determining whether they get their first-round wish.
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