#Nets know they control their NBA championship destiny

James Harden knows what it takes. He’s reached the NBA Finals before. He’s gone to the conference finals two other times. And in the Nets, he firmly believes there are championship possibilities barring injury or underperformance. It’s in their control.

“One-thousand percent,” he said Wednesday. “Some teams say, ‘We just need to do what we do best,’ and that’s just not good enough at times. But for us … if we do do that, then we definitely have a chance.”

The Nets are considered by many experts the favorites to win it all, even if they are the second seed in the Eastern Conference and not No. 1. Kevin Durant isn’t thinking about what the prognosticators believe will happen, though.

“I understand what that stuff on paper [says] and how teams look and how accomplished players on our team are, but for us, we respect the game and our opponents too much to come in and say, ‘Look we’re expected to win this,’ ” Durant said. “We’re coming out there and understanding we can be beat if we don’t lock in. We have a good opportunity with a lot of great players on this team that mix well with each other, but we still gotta go out there and do the work.”

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Recently, coach Steve Nash sat down with his three big stars for a film session. The trio of Durant, Harden and Kyrie Irving only played eight games together, so Nash just wanted to make sure they were on the same page entering the playoffs.

“It’s always good to check, to go over scenarios, to make sure we’re on the same page with game plans and schemes and whatnot,” Nash said. “So it’s always beneficial. I think it was productive as well.”

Harden didn’t make it seem like communication or on-court chemistry will be a problem. The three players speak constantly about what to expect in the playoffs.

“We talk basically all day about what we need to do, our kind of approach to the game,” Harden said.

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The Nets swept the season series from the Celtics, taking all three games, but the two teams that take the floor Saturday night will be very different. Durant and Harden only played in one of the games and Boston point guard Kemba Walker didn’t appear in any. The Celtics won’t have second-leading scorer Jaylen Brown (wrist surgery), but they will have guard Evan Fournier, who was acquired in March from the Magic and didn’t face the Nets during the regular season.

“I think it’s really hard to take too much away from the season series in that we kind of played them with three different teams,” Nash said. “So different looks each time.”