The N.B.A. playoffs this year have an exciting cast. There is Stephen Curry and the supercharged Warriors; the veterans on the Spurs; the Pelicans and the playoff debutant Anthony Davis; and LeBron James in his return to Cleveland.
And then there are . Brooklyn grabbed the last playoff spot on Wednesday night after posting a record of just 38-44. That earned them a seven-game series against the Atlanta Hawks, who finished 22 games better, at 60-22.
A losing team in the N.B.A. playoffs is not all that uncommon. There is even another one this year, the , who finished 40-42 and earned the seventh seed and a series against the Cavs.
A big reason this happens is the decade-long imbalance in the N.B.A. conferences. For years, Western teams have regularly fattened their records on their weaker Eastern counterparts. As a result, while many winning teams from the West, like Oklahoma City this year, have missed out on the playoffs, relatively weak Eastern teams have qualified.
In this century, 11 teams have made the playoffs with a losing record. All were from the East.
Since 2000, 11 teams with losing records have made the playoffs, including two this season. So far, every one has lost in the first round.
The worst of these was the 2004 Celtics, who were 36-46, two games worse than this year’s Nets. They were swept by the Indiana Pacers in the playoffs, with no game closer than 13 points.
All nine of the Nets and Celtics’ predecessors lost their opening playoff series, posting a combined record of 7-36, a .162 winning percentage.
Still, this year’s Nets are hopeful. “The playoffs is a whole other monster,” Jarrett Jack said . “Things could totally be different in that landscape.”
Does history offer any hope for a team with a losing record? Perhaps the Nets can look to the 2008 Hawks.
Led by Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and the rookie Al Horford, Atlanta rode an 11-4 stretch starting in mid-March to the last playoff berth. They faced the top-seeded Celtics of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo, who had been 66-16 in the regular season, best in the league by a full seven games.
Two easy Celtics wins at home to start made it look as if the series would be the expected formality. But the Hawks countered, winning their own home games, with Johnson scoring 35 in Game 4.
The teams continued to trade home wins until Game 7, in Boston. There, the better team finally asserted itself with a comfortable 99-65 win. But Atlanta had overachieved by any measure, especially considering that the Celtics went on to win the N.B.A. title.
Though it would be fair to call many of these losing playoff teams mediocre, none were truly bad. But peering back further in history, when the rules were different, it is possible to find actually terrible teams that were given admittance to the N.B.A. playoffs.
None was worse than the 1952-53 Baltimore Bullets. Their star, Don Barksdale, is remembered for being the , not for his part in their horrid 16-54 season.
Luckily for the Bullets, they played in the Eastern Division. Six of their 16 wins came against the abysmal Philadelphia Warriors, who finished the season 12-57. Because four of the five teams in each division made the playoffs, the Bullets were in, probably to the annoyance of the Milwaukee Hawks, eliminated in the West despite 27 wins.
The first round of the playoffs was best-of-three then, and after 80-62 and 90-81 victories by the Knicks, the Bullets’ season was over and they were lost to history.
The 2014-15 Nets are facing steep odds. If the past is a guide, even one win against Atlanta would be a big achievement.
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