PHILADELPHIA — Going into their first-round playoff series opener on Saturday against the 76ers, the Nets are OK with being underrated and overlooked.

Hell, they embrace it. 

What they can’t be is outworked. 

If the sixth-seeded Nets are going to have any hope of pulling off an upset, they will need to take it to the heavily favored 76ers and their superstars, Joel Embiid and James Harden, in Game 1 at Wells Fargo Center.

They will have to hit first and keep hitting. 

“Yeah, it is the tone,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “Especially when you’re on the road that first game, you’re going to have to take a punch. 

“So the poise for our group, which we’ve shown this year, will be extremely important because it’s punching and counterpunching, and how we react to situations throughout the course of the game. And being [also] aggressive. Just because we’re the sixth seed doesn’t mean you can’t be the aggressor.” 

The Nets are at a disadvantage in terms of length of time together, talent and raw size, with nobody who can physically match Embiid.

The Nets will need to use their length and switchability to throw different looks and lineups at him. 

“It’s a 48-minute, 7-game task. He’s one of the most unstoppable forces in the league,” said Seth Curry, Embiid’s former 76ers teammate and Philadelphia coach Doc Rivers’ son-in-law. “It’s always good to go back and play there. Hostile environment, one of the best playoff environments, some of the best fans and should be good competition.” 

To make it competitive, the Nets will need to push the pace, speed the Sixers up and get Mikal Bridges (26.1 ppg since he was acquired from the Suns) going on offense. 

But most of all, they will need to compete for four quarters. 

“The one thing you take from playoff series is that the experience piece of it doesn’t cover as much as you think it covers,” Cam Johnson said. “Every possession you have to compete, every game you have to compete. 

“That’s the biggest things I picked up is that you can’t just think, ‘Oh, I’ve been going here before, it’ll take care of itself.’ You’ve got to compete and stay locked-in every second. And we’re a group that understands that. We’ve got a lot of guys who’ve had a variety of results and playoff success and frustrations at the same time that we can all draw from.” 

Johnson and Bridges, who both were acquired from Phoenix in the Kevin Durant trade, can draw from their experience: the success of reaching the 2021 NBA Finals and the frustration of having the Western Conference’s top seed last year only to lose a second-round Game 7 at home to the Mavericks in a 123-90 rout. 

On the other end of that hard-earned lesson?

Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith, who arrived from Dallas in the Kyrie Irving deal.

Those two moves signaled a rebuilding, drew a cry from Nets fans and ostensibly shut their championship window.

But don’t tell them they can’t compete with the 76ers. 

“It’s one day championship expectations, one day it’s not, so then the sky is falling and all that other stuff,” Dinwiddie said. “So I have sympathy for the fans, and I understand they were going to have a catastrophic reaction. 

“But the good thing about having the maturity of the guys in this locker room, we understood we have the talent to really make a run. If we play defense to the way we want to, then we have a shot at beating anybody. So we understood that, we work towards that … and you’ve got to let the chips fall where they may.” 

Finney-Smith added: “I love [being underdogs]. We don’t want anything given to us, but we’ve got to earn it. It’s our first year together, so we’ve got to earn that respect.” 

The Nets have only played together for two months, but they have 381 aggregate playoff games of experience, including 181 starts.

Dinwiddie, Finney-Smith and Curry have been to conference finals, Bridges and Johnson went to those 2021 Finals and Patty Mills has a ring from his days with the Spurs. 

“As hostile as Philly is just from the fan base and the culture, most of the guys that are playing have been in more hostile environments,” Dinwiddie said. “All over the place we have experience. We don’t necessarily have the Philly-specific experience and we haven’t played an MVP, and we give credit where it’s due. But we do have something to fall back on for sure.”