Brooklyn Nets: 3 things to watch in season finale against Heat

3. Still things for Brooklyn to achieve

The Brooklyn Nets have a playoff spot locked up, but don’t yet know whether they will be playing the Philadelphia 76ers or Toronto Raptors when the first round opens either Saturday or Sunday.

With a win over the Miami Heat Wednesday night, that ambiguity is cleared up — Brooklyn would lock down the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference and head to Philadelphia for the weekend.

With a loss, the Nets could still end up sixth, but would need losses by both the Orlando Magic and Detroit Pistons to assure it.

If rookie Rodions Kurucs starts Wednesday, it would be his 46th start of the season, the most by a Nets rookie since MarShon Brooks made 56 starts in 2011-12 and the second-most by a second-round pick in team history.

Only P.J. Brown, who started 54 games for the New Jersey Nets in 1993-94 after being selected in the second round in 1992 and playing a season in Greece, has made more starts for the franchise as a second-round rookie.

Oh, and there’s the whole winning season thing. The Nets enter play Wednesday at 41-40 and with a victory would finish better than .500 for the first time since posting a 44-38 record in 2013-14.

That would close out the season with an improvement of 14 victories, one of the biggest-single season turnarounds in franchise history. The Nets have a total of XXX NBA seasons in which they’ve won at least 10 more games than the previous campaign, per Basketball-Reference.com:

• 2001-02 New Jersey Nets, +26: 52-30 (26-56 the previous year)
• 1981-82 New Jersey Nets, +20: 44-38 (24-58)
• 1997-98 New Jersey Nets, +17: 43-39 (26-56)
• 1991-92 New Jersey Nets, +14: 40-42 (26-56)
• 1978-79 New Jersey Nets, +13: 37-45 (24-58)
• 2018-19 Brooklyn Nets, +13: 41-40 (28-54)
• 2010-11 New Jersey Nets, +12: 24-58 (12-70)

That’s not including the 2012-13 Brooklyn Nets, who won 49 games in a full season after the last version of the New Jersey Nets were 22-44 in a lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign (projects to approximately 27 wins, roughly a plus-22).

Brooklyn has arrived ahead of schedule in a rebuilding process that began in 2016 with the hiring of general manager Sean Marks and hasn’t had the usual trappings, such as lottery picks in the draft, to work with.

A 42-40 finish as opposed to 41-41 is not, in the grand scheme of things, that big a difference. But the symbolism of being over .500 as opposed to being merely .500 does have some significance, certainly with the fan base.

This season has been marked by a whole bunch of “first-time-since” accomplishments, so why not cap it off with the first winning record in five years?