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| Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks are just 2.5 games in front of the Nets right now in the Atlantic Division. A good week for Brooklyn and a bad one for Manhattan could have that flip-flopped |
Right now, the Nets are situated in 2nd-place in the Atlantic Division, just 2.5 games behind the division-leading Knicks. In the Eastern Conference as a whole, Brooklyn is in 4th, just two games behind the Pacers in 3rd-place and of course, 2.5 behind the 2nd-place Knicks. But with just 19 games left before the end of the season, the Nets have to make a move pretty soon if they want to overcome New York in the division race and maybe the Pacers and Knicks in the conference. And if they are going to make that move, this upcoming week would be a great time to do so.
From tomorrow (Monday the 11th) until next Monday (the 18th), Brooklyn has four games–two at home and two on the road–three of which are against teams that are severely below .500 (the 76ers, Hornets, and Pistons) with one against a probable playoff team (the Hawks), a team that the Nets soundly beat on the road last night down in Atlanta.
On the other hand, the Knicks play five games in the upcoming eight days. All five of these games are on the road, with four coming against above-.500 teams (the Warriors, Nuggets, Clippers, and Jazz) and just one against a below-.500 team (the Trail Blazers). As we know from experience with the Nets, the West-Coast swings that the Knicks are experiencing this week are normally disastrous for Atlantic time-zone teams, this providing an opportunity for Brooklyn to take advantage of the Knicks' tough schedule in order to take control of the division or just cut into the 2.5-game deficit.
Clearly, the eight days ahead (Monday to Monday) are really important for the Nets to use in terms of the push for the Atlantic Division. With a relatively light schedule coming up, Brooklyn should be able to take care of the bad teams they are facing soon while the Knicks should falter under the pressure of a cross-country trip vs good Western Conference teams. Obviously, things don't always play out in reality as they might appear to on paper, but according to the normal rules of strength-of-schedule, the Nets have a crucial week ahead of them with making up space on their cross-city rivals in the standings.
Essentially, now is crunch-time for the Nets. This week is basically what we, Nets fans, have been waiting for since the dog days of the Izod Center and Prudential Center. We've been clamoring for a playoff team since the days of Kidd, Jefferson, and Carter, and it looks like we finally have it. However, the Nets–right now–aren't going to go far in the playoffs and certainly need to improve A LOT if they do want to advance deep through the rounds.
Also, if the season ended today, Brooklyn would be the playing the 5th-seeded Chicago Bulls in the first round, a dangerous team that the Nets are 1-2 against this season and may be getting its best player back soon in Derrick Rose. I don't know about some Nets fans, but I do not feel safe in this team going up against the Bulls in a playoff series right now, or even in a month or so when the playoffs actually begin.
So, it would make sense that if the Nets improved their standing in the conference just a little bit–maybe by one or two spots–before the end of the regular season, thus ending up against a team like the Bucks or Hawks instead, they have that much more of a chance to go far in the postseason. And what does that chance all come down to? How this team plays the rest of the season, accentuated by how it plays this all-important next week or so.
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