"Someone asked Deron Williams at shootaround this morning how different it is to be playing in the Eastern Conference, where sub-.500 teams can actually make the playoffs, as opposed to the Western Conference, where that kind of thing never happens.

"It's a lot different," Williams said. "You've got to be above .500 in the West to be in the playoffs, sniff the playoffs. So it's a lot different. But it's good for our team right now, because of the way we started, because we put ourselves in a little hole. But we're not out of it.

"We go on a little win streak, and we can climb spots pretty easily."

Twenty games into the season, consider the Nets officially in the hunt for a playoff spot, thanks to their first winning streak of the season.

They're still under .500, at 7-13, but their 99-96 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight in Quicken Loans arena was their second in a row, their fourth win in the last six games, their fifth in nine.

And it pulled them to within a game of the Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks, who are tied for the eighth spot in the East, at 7-11. "