NEW YORK -- Brooklyn Nets vs. New York Knicks! East River Rivalry! Thursday night at Barclays Center!

Better known as the most highly anticipated matchup between two terrible NBA teams in NYC history. ...

Yay?

The winner will be crowned the best of the worst.

The loser? Well, given the disarray and turmoil surrounding both teams, you don't want to be the loser.

"It's the rivalry and both teams stink," Nets coach Jason Kidd replied when asked if there's more meaning to Thursday night's game given the proximity between the team teams. "The one thing is we have to find a way to get better. It starts tomorrow for us. We have to find some answers as to why we go our separate ways instead of staying as a team. So we'll figure that out, and again, we have to find a way to protect home."

As of Tuesday night, the Nets (5-13) held a one-game lead over the Knicks (3-13) -- for 13th place in the Eastern Conference. Brooklyn has lost 11 of its past 14 games, while New York will come in riding a season-high nine-game losing streak.

Prior to Tuesday night's 111-87 blowout loss to the Denver Nuggets at Barclays Center, Kidd decided to reassign assistant Lawrence Frank to a reduced role.

As for Knicks coach Mike Woodson? Well, his seat seems to be getting hotter with every loss.

"I think at this point, we are trying to figure out who we are and fix this," power forward Kevin Garnett said when asked about the Knicks. "We are at home getting beat by 30, 40 points, and that’s not what we want. That's not even close to what we predicted where we wanted to be.

"We just want to understand, and like I said, there's a lot of things going on here, but no excuses. This is a non-excuse league, people don't care about that. They care about performance and coming out and we need to have a better showing at home, we need to have a better showing, period. And we will. We have no choice."