One of the most interesting teams to watch this NBA season has been the Brooklyn Nets. After mortgaging their future to acquire aging veterans Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry from the Celtics in a draft day deal, Brooklyn stumbled out of the gate.
Through 31 games, the Nets sat at a paltry 10-21. Instead of competing for a title, Brooklyn was competing with the Knicks for the title of least embarrassing team in New York. Since then however, the Nets are a scorching hot 26-10 and have moved up to the 5th seed out East.
With 15 games remaining, Brooklyn has an real shot at home court in the first round and is starting to feel pretty good about themselves. How good exactly? According to the New York Post, Paul Pierce thinks his Nets can match up with anyone in the East. Yes, even Miami and Indiana.
“Nobody is talking about us,” Pierce said. “But we feel like we match up with anybody in the league, especially in the Eastern Conference.”
“Come playoff time, we feel we can compete with the best of them,” Pierce continued. “And we feel like we can be one of the better teams in the East, if not come out of the East, and we’ll be able to surprise a couple of teams.”
While the idea of Brooklyn coming out of the Eastern Conference seems crazy, let’s not just chalk this one up to a veteran being prideful.
During this Brooklyn hot streak the Heat and Pacers have both had their share of struggles. While the Nets may not knock either one of those teams off, their play has at least put into question what seemed to be a guaranteed Miami-Indiana Eastern Conference Finals.
Despite the West getting all the hype, the Eastern Conference playoffs are shaping up to be just as fun. If Pierce is right, we may have some big surprises in store.
