Brooklyn battles for 8th seed at home vs. Magic

(SportsNetwork.com) - The Brooklyn Nets are still alive for the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race, but the odds are stacked against them.

The Nets need a win Wednesday versus the Orlando Magic and a loss by the Indiana Pacers against the Memphis Grizzlies to claim the final postseason berth in the East.

Brooklyn holds the tiebreaker over Indiana by winning two of three meetings in the regular season. The top-seeded Atlanta Hawks await the No. 8 seed.

Brooklyn is 12-6 since mid-March and looks to snap a two-game slide versus the Magic. The Nets have dropped three of their last four games, including Monday's 113-86 blowout at the hands of the Chicago Bulls at Barclays Center.

Bojan Bogdanovic and Jarrett Jack scored 17 and 15 points, respectively, and Brook Lopez added 13 points and eight rebounds for the Nets, who shot 37 percent for the game and fell to 18-22 at home. Deron Williams had nine points and five assists in defeat.

"There's really no explanation and no excuse," Williams said. "You really can't win against a team like this when you're not sharing the ball."

The Nets mustered just 12 assists on the night.

Brooklyn is hoping to punch a ticket to the playoffs for a third straight year and was eliminated by the Miami Heat in five games in last season's Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Magic will miss the postseason for a third season in a row and have lost three straight and 13 of the last 17 games.

Victor Oladipo scored 30 points on 10-of-23 shooting in Monday's 100-93 loss to the Heat and Tobias Harris added 26 points with 12 rebounds. Elfrid Payton rounded out the double-digit scorers with 10 points for Orlando, which shot 41 percent from the floor and were outrebounded, 50-41.

"They got to the rim at will," said Magic interim head coach James Borrego, whose team was beaten 66-46 in the paint. "We did not have enough resistance at the rim."

Nikola Vucevic had just three points and four boards in 19 minutes. He leads the Magic in points (19.2), rebounds (10.9) and field goal percentage (52.2).

The Magic are 12-28 on the road and have lost 13 of the last 15 games as the visitor.

Orlando is 0-2 against Brooklyn this season and has lost three in a row and eight of the last 10 matchups in this series. The Nets are unbeaten in the last five encounters with the Magic at Barclays Center.