Brooklyn Nets hang on to beat Raptors in Game 7, will face LeBron James and Heat in second round

The Nets nearly gave it away in a frantic final minute, when Toronto stole the ball on an in-bound pass on a Paul Pierce turnover. But Pierce redeemed himself, blocking Kyle Lowry's potential game-winner.

Paul Pierce celebrates surviving the Nets’ seven-game series against the Raptors.

TORONTO — Surviving the pesky Raptors and playoff extinction required a final burst from old-man Paul Pierce, a stand-still leap inside the paint to swat Kyle Lowry’s potential game-winning runner at the buzzer and halt what would have been a wild eruption. Pierce loved the atmosphere at Air Canada Centre.
He called it one of the loudest of his long career, and the deafening reverberations in the fourth quarter made it seem like a genuine tribute from Pierce, not just a farewell plug. But he isn’t Pierce unless he throws the defeat in their faces. So he blew the fans kisses on his way to Miami for another date with LeBron James, following Sunday’s 104-103 Game 7 victory.
“Rivalries start with them as teams. We had a rivalry with (James and Dwyane Wade) as Celtics. It’s not a rivalry with Brooklyn yet. You can’t create rivalries in the regular season,” Pierce said. “I think they build in the playoffs, years of series of going at it. So you can’t really say it’s a rivalry. Miami is the favorite this year, they’ve won two championships.

Nets forward Paul Pierce blocks Raptors guard Kyle Lowry on the potential game-winning shot.

“We’re still trying to earn our respect as a team, as a franchise, the city of Brooklyn. That’s where we are at right now.”
Still, there was always the sense —even in the regular season, when the Nets swept the four-game series against Miami — that this matchup was inevitable, that the Nets would somehow, some way, find the road to South Beach during the playoffs. The Heat has been waiting there for a week after sweeping the Bobcats in the first round. Game 1 is Tuesday at American Airlines Arena. “It seems like we’re seeing D-Wade and LeBron for the last past seven, eight years,” said Kevin Garnett, who will play against James in the playoffs for the fifth time in the last seven years, including twice while James was in Cleveland.