With the NBA set to return, the Brooklyn Nets and their eight-game “tune-up” schedule leaves the team with a stressful road to the NBA Playoffs ahead.
At last NBA executives reached an agreement regarding this year’s playoff format following the league’s three-month hiatus. Offering teams a few games to potentially shake up conference standings before the postseason tips off, the Brooklyn Nets stand amongst those with the most to lose.
Our most recent memory involving Nets basketball feels disgustingly distant at this point, having received nothing to feed our basketball appetites since March. That memory, which involved the Nets defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, likely left most fans feeling relieved and honestly quite surprised given Brooklyn’s mediocre play this year compared to the Lakers and their spot atop the Western Conference.
But going forward, adjusting to competition against high caliber teams such as the Lakers seems like a wise move for the Nets given their recently revealed road ahead. While Lakers remain absent from Brooklyn’s proposed 8 game playoff tune-up, their equally powerful roommates, the Los Angeles Clippers do, even showing up twice.
With the Orlando Magic, who trail the Nets by only a half-game, also set to line up against Brooklyn twice, as well as another game against the 43-21 Boston Celtics. Those teams formulate some serious threats against the Nets their stance as a playoff team, having built up only a six-game barrier between themselves and an early offseason thus far.
In between these ominous hurdles also lies games against the Sacramento Kings, Washington Wizards, and a finale against Damian Lillard’s Portland Trail Blazers. Overall, Brooklyn’s opponents form a 272-244 record, adding certainly some additional stress to those who bet on a Nets playoff berth this year.
Brooklyn Nets 8 game schedule:
— Nick Gryniewicz (@GetNickG) June 3, 2020
Game 1: vs Clippers
Game 2: vs Kings
Game 3: vs Wizards
Game 4: vs Celtics
Game 2: vs Magic
Game 6: vs Clippers
Game 7: vs Magic
Game 8: vs Blazers
...presumably without Kyrie Irving & Kevin Durant...wow
Like it or not, these were the cards dealt to the Nets by the NBA this week, and unable to call for a re-shuffle, the way by which they play them out singlehandedly decides whether either an early offseason or an invitation to Mickey Mouse’s “party” exists before them.