NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets forward Royce O’Neale has been on fire for the Nets over the past two games as he has made at least six threes in consecutive games. While Sunday’s game against the Bulls was just a normal regular-season game, Tuesday was the last day of the NBA’s In-Season Tournament.
“We kind of were paying attention to it, but we didn’t know exactly.” O’Neale said after putting up 18 points (6-of-12 shooting fron deep), seven rebounds, and four assists in Tuesday’s 115-103 win over the Toronto Raptors. O’Neale was referring to the margin of victory that Brooklyn had to win by in order to secure a spot in the knockout round of the tournament.
“So, you’re just like, just in that last minute, try to score as many points as we can,” O’Neale said. To put it simply, if the Nets wanted to advance to the knockout round, they not only had to beat the Raptors, but they also had to win by enough for them to win the tiebreaker over the Boston Celtics in terms of point differential. Brooklyn won by 12, but the Celtics won by 27 in their matchup against the Chicago Bulls.
All of the Nets’ players, including O’Neale, were keeping track of what they would have to do if Tuesday’s game went a certain way by a certain point in time. “It’s funny because I actually seen someone on Twitter was like, if it’s like a 10-point game with a minute left, what’s gonna happen? (Well), it happened,” O’Neale explained.
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