Just 48 game minutes separate the Brooklyn Nets from their first playoff berth in six years, but before they get to the postseason they have one last piece of business: Wednesday’s regular season finale here at Barclays Center against the Detroit Pistons.

The Nets are playing out the proverbial string tonight, locked into the No. 4 seed and doing a little scoreboard watching to see if they will meet Chicago or Atlanta in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs beginning this weekend.

With their spot already locked in, interim head coach P.J. Carlesimo took the opportunity on Monday to sit four of his five starters – all except Gerald Wallace – as well as veterans Keith Bogans and Jerry Stackhouse. Even though the nine-man rotation of mostly reserves pulled out a 106-101 win over Washington, Carlesimo had said Monday night that the same scenario wouldn’t repeat on Wednesday, and he reiterated those comments in his pre-game press conference.

“The six guys who didn’t play Monday haven’t played since Sunday because we had yesterday off. … We don’t know what’s going to happen yet (with the playoff schedule), whether we play Saturday or Sunday, so I think it’s important to get them some run,” Carlesimo said. “They have to sweat, they have to play, and it will be much more beneficial than a scrimmage. We need to stay healthy and play well.”

Carlesimo did not indicate which two players will be inactive – saying everyone seemed healthy and available at morning shoot-around – but did say rotation tonight will be more “get everybody involved and keep everyone healthy” than true “playoff rotation preview.”

“We’ll play everyone. I think we’ll sub the normal way, but after that we’ll just divide the minutes,” he said. “Gerald (Wallace) might play a few more minutes than the other guys, but we’ll just divvy it up.”

No matter what happens tonight, the Nets will finish with their fifth winning month out of six this season, their most winning months in one campaign since they recorded five in 2002-03 – the last time the franchise went to the NBA Finals – and a total equal to their total amount of winning months in the last five seasons combined.

A win, as well, would give the Nets a season series sweep of Detroit, marking the tenth team they will have blanked, and make Carlesimo 35-19 overall since taking over for Avery Johnson, making him the most successful coach in franchise history through his first 54 games.

All that said, as Carlesimo noted, the Nets won’t be looking past a Pistons team that took them to double-overtime in their previous Barclays meeting, but they may be anxious to just get the playoffs underway in general.

“I think they’re anxious; I think if everybody could fast forward a couple days they’d do that,” he said. “We like to have time to prepare and everything, but I think everybody would just as soon wish it were Saturday or Sunday right now.”

Two other notes of interest about tonight, as it relates to franchise record boards:

-It’s likely that lowered playing team will mean Reggie Evans’ streak of eight consecutive games with 13 or more rebounds will end, but he does still have a lot at stake. Evans is on of pace to lead the NBA in both rebounds per 48 minutes and total rebounding percentage, could break Dennis Rodman’s NBA record for defensive rebounding percentage, and could become the first player in NBA history other than Rodman to have a total rebounding percentage at least 26 percent while playing a minimum of 15 minutes per game. In addition, he needs just six rebounds to tie Jayson Williams for seventh on the franchise’s NBA-era single-season rebounds list.

-Brook Lopez comes in as the only NBA player averaging at least 19 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks per game, and he also comes in with a Player Efficiency Rating of 24.6; if he can maintain that PER, he will finish the season as the Nets’ new NBA-era franchise leader in that category, surpassing the 24.5 PER posted by Vince Carter in 2004-05.

And, finally, a Happy Birthday goes out to point guard C.J. Watson, who will do some balling on his 29th birthday tonight.

Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroYES