The tide turns for the Nets: five straight wins, including last night over the Heat

With a victory in double overtime over defending champions the Miami Heat last night, the Brooklyn Nets have won five straight games in 2014, getting back in the playoffs mix and silencing the calls for Coach Jason Kidd to be sacked.

"[T]his team might (gulp) actually be better with Shaun Livingston than Deron Williams," the Brooklyn Game suggested; the Nets were missing not only star point guard Williams, but also--lost for the season--center Brook Lopez.

That means the Nets look deeper than the Heat, who were playing without star guard Dwayne Wade and starter Mario Chalmers. The Heat are hardly invulnerable; even with Wade, they'd lost to the Knicks the night before.

(For the New York Daily News, at least, the Nets' win was overshadowed by a report on Knicks miscreant J.R. Smith's antics.)

I was in a packed Bar Chord in Ditmas Park last night to see John Pinamonti and his band. The Nets-Heat game was on the television. At least when I was there, in the second and third quarters, only a handful of people paid it any mind. Everyone else--and the place was packed--was talking to friends and listening to music. We're not in Dodgerland any more.