Richard Jefferson admitted yesterday what the standings have made obvious: Detroit has separated itself from the rest of the Eastern Conference.

Run and hide? The Pistons have sprinted and vanished this season.

However, Jefferson reiterated that Miami is there for the overtaking – and he believes securing the East’s No. 2 seed is a worthy goal.

“They’re [3 1/2] games ahead of us, and we hold the tiebreaker on them,” Jefferson said before last night’s game against the Pacers. “Three games with [28] games to go? I think that’s been done before.

“It’s not too far-fetched. I don’t think I was really digging deep to pull that one off.”

As his team begins its final push toward the playoffs, there’s nothing major to improve upon for the Nets (31-23). Before they tried to extend a four-game winning streak against the battered Pacers, Jefferson emphasized the importance of the second seed.

“I think it’s big,” he said. “You want to try to get home court, obviously.

“[The feeling is], ‘Hey, we can’t get Detroit, so let’s try to get home-court in every other situation.’ Will it happen? I don’t know. Is it possible? It’s as possible as anything else in this game.”

Things are looking great for the Nets. Jefferson has returned from the back spasms that sidelined him, Nenad Krstic tossed his version of a perfect game on Friday – when he went 11-for-11 for the field against the Knicks – and Jason Kidd and Vince Carter are two of the best players in the NBA.

Plus, only 12 of their remaining 27 games are on the road, and they had won 14 of 15 at home entering last night.

“You have a situation where you feel like you can make up some ground,” Jefferson said.

The Nets only needed to look across halfcourt during last night’s game to realize, with two-thirds of the season gone by, things could be much worse. Indiana (27-25) was plagued by injuries to Jermaine O’Neal and Jamaal Tinsley after enduring the Ron Artest saga earlier this season.

While Nets coach Lawrence Frank couldn’t pinpoint any major areas that need improving in the final third of the season, he’d like to see improved consistency.

“You look at teams like Detroit, Dallas and San Antonio, they’ve been able to maintain it for the whole year,” Frank said. “That’s the challenge: for us to continue to grow and improve as a team where you have that confidence, but speak softly and carry a big stick, so to speak.

“We can continue to play a whole lot better – that’s the promising thing. The key is we have to continue to make strides of getting there.”