BAND OF FANS: How a band of Brooklyn fans is sitting this one out ... but maintaining their fandom

Over the past couple of years, we Nets fans have seen it all.

Going from New Jersey to Brooklyn; Billy King making arguably the worst trade ever to acquire Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett; watching Brook Lopez break the all-time Nets scoring record; making the playoffs last year, and of course, “The Clean Sweep” in June.

Now though, the coronavirus is plaguing the entire nation and the world. So how is my hardy band of fans out in Old Mill Basin and Sheepshead Bay doing during the mask-wearing, social distancing boredom?

We may not see much of each other, but we stay in touch through FaceTime or online on 2k ... although finding time can be difficult during this pandemic. Since my friend, Gerald, lives the closest to me in Old Mill Basin, we will go grocery shopping together when either of us needs to go.

So here’s what we talk about...

Fahad Saleem, who’s a student at New York City College of Technology, maintains his Nets pride by watching vintage moments online. One that he won’t stop replaying is the playoff series against the Toronto Raptors back in 2013-14. After falling short of expectations in 2014, Brooklyn went into the playoffs as the 6 seed. What Fahad noticed and loved the most about these games was the contribution of Paul Pierce.

Grid View

• Fahad with Jarrett Jack
• Jameel Yahia, who studies Sports Management at St John’s University.
• Gerald, who majors in General Studies at Fulton Montgomery Community College
• Ajayi Browne, author of this post and student at Syracuse University.

In Game 1, Pierce closed out the game against the Raptors by scoring nine points in the fourth while also putting the icing on the cake by hitting a dagger in front of a sold out Scotiabank Arena. It was vintage Pierce.

If that wasn’t enough, the series went into Game 7. In other words, win or go home. As the game went back and forth, Brooklyn found themselves one stop away from winning the series. Here’s a little recap of what happened.

Fahad told me, “Nets fans always look back at Paul Pierce for having one of the worst stints on the Nets, but we have to admit that his performance against Toronto was fun to watch.” Sometimes The Truth hurts (no pun intended).

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Next up, we have Jameel Yahia who studies Sports Management at St John’s University. Jameel reminisces on memories of this season’s Nets games. Particularly, he spoke about Caris LeVert’s 51 point EXPLOSION against the Celtics.

“After going down BIG, and I mean BIG … like 21 points BIG, everyone thought the game was over. Well … except one player.

He went on to say, “Caris blocked out the noise of the the media saying that the team needed Kyrie to win the game. He blocked out the noise of people thinking that he was not capable of having a game like that. He just locked in.”

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Then, we have Gerald who majors in General Studies at Fulton Montgomery Community College. He has been going through Snapchat so he can relive special moments at home games. Here’s his favorite:

Gerald pointed out, “Despite what the score may be, the Nets fight until the end. That is why I have so many special video clips on my phone. By doing this the team creates a grit and grind culture that truly represents Brooklyn.”

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As for me, I am a student at Syracuse University. During this quarantine, debating Knicks fans has felt like a JOB! It’s crazy because at this point last season, Knicks fans were convinced they would be the team to acquire Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

After taking their top free agent targets last summer, their hate for us has only grown. It seems like this grudge will be something they hold against us forever. The only thing we can do now as Nets fans is to continue watching the Nets beat the Knicks like we always do.

No change there!

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