Lottery Watch: Nets-Pacers becomes a high-stakes tank game with three to go
Thursday’s Nets -Pacers game is a lottery game, plain and simple. Brooklyn enters Thursday at 20-59 with the third-best odds, Indiana enters 18-61 with the second-best, and the Nets ’ slim 0.5-game cushion over the Utah Jazz and Sacramento Kings means one result can shift the board with only three games left.
That’s why a matchup between two eliminated teams still carries weight. It’s about draft position, and the margin for error has basically disappeared. It also helps explain why the availability reports look the way they do.
Brooklyn has nine available players for Thursday at Barclays Center, a list made up almost entirely of young players, two-way pieces and recent call-ups: Ben Saraf , Malachi Smith , Drake Powell , E.J. Liddell , Trevon Scott, Tyson Etienne , Jalen Wilson , Ochai Agbaji and Chaney Johnson .
The Nets have ruled out 10 players, including rookie guard Nolan Traoré, who is being rested after playing only nine minutes in Tuesday’s 96-90 win over the Milwaukee Bucks . Josh Minott is out with left ankle soreness. Terance Mann (right patella tendinosis), Noah Clowney (left ankle injury management), Ziaire Williams (tenosynovitis/bursitis in left foot) and Nic Claxton (right fifth finger sprain) are also unavailable.
Indiana’s list is heavy, too. The Pacers have ruled out Tyrese Haliburton , Pascal Siakam , T.J. McConnell , Andrew Nembhard , Aaron Nesmith , Ivica Zubac and Johnny Furphy . Jarace Walker , Ben Sheppard and Kobe Brown are listed as questionable.
Put the records next to those lists and the picture is obvious. This isn’t a “who’s hot” game. It’s a “who’s left” game, and it doubles as a direct lottery-position matchup. Indiana enters holding the second-best odds. Brooklyn is third, with Utah and Sacramento close enough to make every result feel like it carries extra consequence.
That’s the tension for the Nets in the final week. Brooklyn can still compete, and it can still use these games for evaluation, but the standings don’t care about development. A win might feel good in the moment, but it also risks tightening the race with Utah and Sacramento even further, with almost no time left for the bottom of the league to reshuffle again.
Tuesday was the clearest example of how the Nets can stumble into a result they don’t necessarily need. Liddell had the best game of his young career in the win over Milwaukee, scoring 21 points with four rebounds. With the rotation stripped down again on Thursday, Brooklyn is likely to lean heavily on Liddell and the rest of its remaining available group to generate enough offense to stay functional.
For both teams, it’s a strange finish. The season ended months ago in any competitive sense, but the stakes have only narrowed as the calendar runs out. With three games left, Thursday isn’t just another late-season night. It’s another swing in a race neither team is trying to win.
