After watching his team take a beating in Indiana Monday night, interim coach Kevin Ollie hopes the Nets can return the favor Wednesday at Barclays Center. AP Photo by Doug McSchooler
The Nets can’t make the playoffs for the sixth straight year without a miraculous series of fortunate events.
They also haven’t played well enough since the All-Star break to make sure Kevin Ollie loses his interim tag and remains their coach next season.
But one thing Brooklyn can control over these next two weeks, beginning Wednesday night at Downtown’s Barclays Center, is their own resolve to play tougher basketball against the visiting Indiana Pacers in the opener of a four-game homestand.
“We need to understand that and can’t be surprised by the pace on Wednesday,” Ollie noted moments after the Nets suffered a 133-111 beatdown in Indiana Monday night.
“They are going to try to do the same thing and I know our guys are going to be ready and give a better mental and physical battle.”
The Nets (29-47) hardly looked up for the fight against an Indiana team vying for an automatic berth into the opening round of the NBA playoffs.
The Pacers (43-33) will enter Wednesday’s rematch one-half game ahead of Miami for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference and a first-round showdown with league-leading Boston in a best-of-7 series.
Brooklyn has a magic number of one as it prepares for its final homestand of the campaign.
Any combination of a single Nets loss or a win by 10th-place Atlanta will eliminate our borough’s NBA franchise from play-in tournament contention.
Regardless of their playoff fate, the Nets have to reclaim their team toughness after Indiana dominated them along the interior with 70 points in the paint in the series opener.
The Pacers scored 43 first-quarter points and led by as many as…
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