Nets surprisingly remain in play-in race after recent hot streak

Instead of battling for the worst record in the NBA, the Nets have a chance to head into the All-Star break fighting for a berth in the play-in round.Thanks to five wins in their past six games, including two straight, the Nets host Philadelphia on Wednesday night at Barclays Center with a chance to get to within a half-game of the wildly disappointing 76ers.And as of Tuesday, the Nets sat just three games back of the Bulls for 10th place in the Eastern Conference, with six of their next 10 games coming against teams currently outside the playoffs.While the Nets lack depth even more than they did before buying out Ben Simmons, some of the teams in front of them in the East are in disarray.First-year head coach Jordi Fernandez has somehow gotten his team within striking distance of the postseason despite preseason projections that the Nets would be the worst team in the league — and that was before jettisoning Simmons, and trading Dennis Schroder and Dorian Finney-Smith.“What we care about here is the next game and if we’re accomplishing certain things about our development,” Fernandez said.“As you pointed out, we’re three games out of the play-in.

It’s important, but we cannot get lost.I want the guys to be competitive.

We are all competitive here, and finding new ways to be competitive is important.”That hasn’t been an issue of late.“We’re pretty close right now, and the only thing we have to do is stay the course,” Fernandez said.“We just went [on] a seven-game losing streak and nobody here thought that we were not good enough.

We kept working, kept working, kept working.Some wins came our way, and that’s the mentality that I want the guys to have.”Among the players the Nets kept around are Nic Claxton and Day’Ron Sharpe.“Three games back,” Claxton said.

“So we’ve still got a lot of work to do.But if we keep chopping, we know we can get it.”Claxton, listed as questionable for Wednesday’s game because of a right ankl...