#Nets get dominated by Raptors in hit to NBA playoff seeding

The Nets didn’t just get dominated Monday.

They got dropped so deep into the play-in morass they need to start worrying about staying in the postseason picture at all.

Brooklyn’s 133-97 loss to Toronto at Barclays Center was doubly damaging, losing ground to the Raptors in the standings.

“Great challenge,” Nets coach Steve Nash had said pregame, before he was a last-minute scratch for health and safety protocols. “Obviously they have a championship under their belt, continuity with their top guys.

“We really respect the way they play, how they compete. They also happen to be right above us in the standings. It’s going to be a great challenge for us to find a way to compete in these two games and see what we can get out of it.”

The Nets (32-30) fell 3 ¹/₂ games behind the idle sixth-place Boston Celtics and the final guaranteed playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. But at this point, the Nets — losers of 14 of 17 — need to be looking over their shoulder, not ahead.

Eighth-place Brooklyn fell two full games behind the Raptors, with a return game of this home-and-home looming Tuesday in Toronto. The Nets won’t have any of their new Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving or Ben Simmons for that tilt, and the prospect of falling three games back with 19 to play is daunting.

The Nets got torched by Scottie Barnes, who had a game-high 28 points on 12 of 14 shooting from the floor with a game-high 16 rebounds. They held Pascal Siakam to just eight points on 2 of 14 shooting but it didn’t matter, such was their abysmal play in almost every other aspect.

Brooklyn trailed by as much as 39, on a Yuta Watanabe 3-pointer for a 129-90 Toronto lead with 3:37 to play.

LaMarcus Aldridge had 15 points to lead a sorry Nets offense that shot just .384 overall.