Entering tonight’s Game 3 of their playoff series with the Indiana Pacers, the Nets should be fine so long as Vince Carter is in vintage Air Canada, Vinsanity mode. But it helps when the vintage Nets defense show up, too.

New Jersey was a winning team long before Carter hit the Meadowlands, and the reason was their stingy defense. The Nets have finished in the top 10 in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) in every season since 2001. It’s that defense that has carried them to five straight playoff appearances, including two trips to the Finals.

That defense took the afternoon off In Game 1 as the Pacers, a team that shot 44.4% from the field during the season, hit on 46.9%. That’s hardly shooting the lights out, but 2.5% can mean four additional points in a game, and that’s huge in a two-point victory, especially when it’s a road win in the playoffs.

The Nets were having none of that in Tuesday’s Game 2. Playing a Pacer team without sharpshooter Peja Stojakovic, the Nets swarmed Jermaine O’Neal and Stephen Jackson, denying them good looks from their spots and drawing early fouls, which forced them to the bench for most of the second quarter. Missing all three of their primary offensive threats, the Pacers were clueless, missing 21 of 25 shots at one point.

Meanwhile, Carter, with 33 points on 12-of-20 shooting, attacked the rim aggressively, getting to the line nine times and drawing multiple defenders to him, which allowed easy baskets for Nenad Krstic (20 points on 7-of-13 shooting) and Richard Jefferson (21 points on 7-of-17 shooting).

As the Nets’ lead hovered near the 20-point range, the Pacers stole a page from the Golden State Warriors’ playbook and began hoisting 3-pointers with abandon. They shot 34.9% during the regular season, but killed any hope of a comeback on Tuesday by firing blanks at a 7-of-25 clip. Unfortunately, the Nets decided to start jacking up threes too, and when the Pacers settled back into their offense, they narrowed the margin to eight, but got no closer.

Going into Conseco Fieldhouse tonight, the Nets will have to amplify their defensive intensity further. Stojakovic, a late scratch for Game 2, figures to return from his knee trouble and will make the Nets pay for any slow rotations out of double teams on O’Neal and Jackson. Furthermore, the Pacers will probably do better on the boards with the home crowd behind them.

The Nets have reverted back into being a three-man offense. Carter, Krstic, and Jefferson have accounted for 146 of the Nets 188 points in the series. Indiana, like the Nets, is a top defensive team,and unless New Jersey diversifies a little, it could succumb to Indiana’s defensive pressure.

The prime candidate is Jason Kidd, who has to use his substantial matchup advantages over Jamal Tinsley and Anthony Johnson and look for his shot more. If he can’t get his shot going, then the Nets will have to rely on their offensively challenged reserves, and they could easily come back to the Meadowlands on Tuesday with their backs to the wall.

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Anyone who doesn’t follow the regular season closely may have wondered what parallel universe they’d stepped into Monday night when the Los Angeles Clippers ran out to a 40-18 lead over the Denver Nuggets en route to an easy 98-87 win and a 2-0 series lead.

While it’s true this is the best Clippers team since they moved to the West Coast 26 years ago, the key is that the Nuggets aren’t very good. Right now, they amount to forward Carmelo Anthony, point guard Andre Miller, and a group of banged up big men surrounded by a not-ready-for-prime-time supporting cast. Injuries to Nene and Kenyon Martin (who was suspended for the next two games by the Nuggets for “conduct detrimental to the team”) have certainly hurt the Nuggets, but their downfall is their poorly constructed roster, built by Kiki Vandeweghe, the man many local fans want to hire if Isiah Thomas leaves the Knicks this summer.

Fans should think again. All Vandeweghe has done is draft Anthony and sign Miller, the best point guard available. He’s done little to fortify Denver during its three seasons as a playoff team, and that should result in a quick exit from this year’s postseason.

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Sometime Saturday afternoon, all but the hardiest of Kings fans wrote Sacramento off for dead as San Antonio won Game 1 of their series by 34 points. Without forward Ron Artest, who was suspended by the league for Game 2, the odds of a Kings win seemed astronomical. Yet they led 109-106 with seconds to go.

Spurs guard Manu Ginobili spent several seconds dribbling on the perimeter before starting a drive. Instead of fouling and sending the Spurs – the league’s second worst free throw shooting team – to the line, the Kings closed on Manu, which left Brent Barry open to rattle in a game tying 3-pointer.The Spurs went on to win 128-119 in overtime. Nets coach Lawrence Frank is one of the few coaches who routinely orders fouls in that situation, and one can only imagine that Kings coach Rick Adelman may finally see the light. Instead of finishing a great victory, Sacramento finds itself perilously close to disappearing quietly from the postseason party.

mjohnson@nysun.com