Well before the Brooklyn Nets earned their pair of impressive wins over the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Clippers inside the Disney bubble, Rodions Kurucs expressed he and his teammates could knock off the Toronto Raptors if they faced off in the first round:
If we are the seventh seed, we’re going to go against Toronto probably. We definitely have a chance. We have been competing with that team, and I definitely think we can beat them in Round 1.
With two games left on Brooklyn’s seeding games schedule, the Nets are now, in fact, set to play the reigning NBA champions in the first round of the postseason.
And now Kurucs isn’t the only member of the Nets who thinks they can upset the Raptors:
“We know they’re a really good team. Obviously, they’re playing good basketball, they move the ball really well, they’re a great defensive team, as well,” Caris LeVert said after Sunday’s win, per Brian Lewis of the New York Post. “But for us, we feel like it’s about us. If we move the ball well, if we play good defense, if we’re locked into the game plan, we can win that series. We truly believe that. So we’re gonna go into that playoff matchup all the way locked in.”
With the way the Nets are playing now, the series, at least, shouldn’t be the cakewalk some might have initially expected.