Brooklyn Nets: Making the playoffs is a major turning point for the franchise

In last night’s win over the Indiana Pacers, the Brooklyn Nets have clinched their first playoff berth since the 2014-2015 season.

Despite being one of the worst teams in the NBA during the last few seasons, the Brooklyn Nets have made some noise this year, especially by securing a playoff berth. Although it took until the eighty-first game to do so, this season has been a success. They currently sit at 6th in the Eastern Conference (41-40) with a chance to swap the 7th seed with the Orlando Magic based on the results of their regular season finale against the Miami Heat.

Coach Kenny Atkinson and his coaching staff have done a great job turning this team around and utilizing the young pieces they have the right way, which in turn created a well-balanced team effort all season. Coach Atkinson definitely deserves to be in the running for Coach of the Year.

Coach Atkinson owns a 89-156 (48-116 in the previous two) record in his third season as the head coach of the Nets. That is a major accomplishment when a coach almost matches his win total from the past two seasons in one year.

Aside from Coach Atkinson, D’Angelo Russell‘s emergence as an All-Star and leader of the Nets was the most substantial root of their success this season.

Playoffs

As the 9th youngest team in the NBA, the Nets have all but five players in DeMarre Carroll, Jared Dudley, Ed Davis, and Allen Crabbe (excluding Joe Harris and Shabazz Napier, and Spencer Dinwiddie) with decent playoff experience.

With the sixth-eighth seeds still waiting to be decided, the Nets can fall to the seventh seed if they lose their final game to the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic win theirs against the Charlotte Hornets, who are still fighting for the eighth seed. The two teams that the Nets will  match up against in the first round of the playoffs are the Toronto Raptors or the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Nets are 1-3 against the Raptors this season, winning once by one and losing those three games by seventeen, two, and ten. When they faced the 76ers this season, they managed to end the series tied at 2-2, winning twice by twenty-five and three and losing twice by two and thirteen.

Although the Brooklyn Nets are not expected to pass the first round against any of these Eastern Conference powerhouses, they will earn much-needed playoff experience.

Conclusion

Even without having much offseason and lottery success, the Nets are one of the best storylines in the NBA today.

Coach Kenny Atkinson is a Coach of the Year candidate and will only lead this team in the right direction.

We can all appreciate and respect how the Nets collectively showed their sense of urgency and aggressiveness this past month since their chances of making the playoffs were slipping each time they lost a game.

The NBA playoffs are set to begin on April 13th and we will see how this young up-and-coming Nets team handles pressure firsthand.