BYRON Scott can remember the days when he was a Laker and playing the Celtics was as tough mentally as it was physically.
He can recall the sauna of the Boston Garden where the windows in the locker room were nailed shut and the temperature in the tiny room was near 100. “It was ridiculous,” Scott said yesterday. “But you expected that from them.”
Along with the elements, the Lakers had to deal with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson. You weren’t just trying to beat the Celtics. You were trying to beat an institution.
But the Celtics, who will arrive at the Meadowlands today for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, aren’t your father’s Celtics. There will be no Bird, no Parish, no McHale, and no mystique as far as the Nets are concerned.
“I don’t think it plays much of a factor,” Keith Van Horn said yesterday after the Nets concluded their final full practice before today’s game. “They’re a new team in a new era. And we’re a new team, trying to establish something here. We’re not concerned with what they’ve done in the past, but with what we’re going to do in the future.”
If there’s one word to describe the Nets as they enter their biggest series in franchise history, it’s fearless. They’re not afraid of playing the tradition-rich Celtics. They’re not afraid of Paul Pierce or Antoine Walker or Kenny Anderson. They’re not afraid of being one step away from the NBA Finals or the pressure of being this close to their ultimate dream.
And they’re not afraid to say they deserve everything they’ve gotten and that they’re good enough to expect more.
“This what you prepare for since October,” Jason Kidd said, “to play for a championship.”
The Nets will tell you Pierce isn’t Michael Jordan because Jordan never had to tell anyone they couldn’t stop him one-on-one. And Walker isn’t Bird because Bird never had to promote himself with a body shake after he scored. And the Nets know Anderson was a former first-round draft pick who was supposed to take the Nets to excellence, but never got past the first round.
So, if you think the Nets are shuddering because they lost three of four games to the Celtics during the regular season or that Pierce averaged 37 points per game against them, think again.
“That’s in the regular season,” Kidd said. “This is the playoffs now and the records are 0-0.”
The Nets blame themselves for those three loses. They point to their 78 turnovers in their four games vs. Boston.
“We were leading in three games going into the final six minutes, but execution and turnovers really hurt,” Van Horn said. “We just need to take care of the ball.”
They also will extend their perimeter defense to the three-point line to make it tougher on the Celtics, who shot 46.2 percent from behind the arc in those regular-season meetings with Pierce making an incredible 21 of 28.
“We want to make them play from inside the three,” Scott said. “If they can beat us off the dribble and get to the basket, that’s a different story.”
Supposedly, the matchups favor the Celtics in this series. Pierce, Walker, Anderson, Erik Williams – how can the Nets possibly cover them all? But then again, the Hornets’ height and bench were supposed to be their advantage, yet they were done in five games.
Hang around the Nets and it doesn’t take long to get the sense they like their position heading into this series. NBC has to be drooling at the prospect of a Lakers-Celtics Finals so they can dig up all those old clips of Bird and Magic Johnson.
The Nets will have none of it.
“We have confidence in ourselves,” Van Horn said. “We have confidence as individuals and we’re going to go out there and play like that.”