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| Jeff Teague always does well against the Nets, and tonight was no exception |
We knew the Nets weren't going to win EVERY game in 2013, right? Well, even if some of you out there did think that, it's impossible now because of the smackdown Brooklyn was dished by the Atlanta Hawks tonight at Philips Arena. After winning seven games in a row, all in the new year, the Nets were bound for a letdown game, and oh boy did they let down tonight. They scored just 40 1st half points and shot under 43 percent for the game, compared to 56 points in that timespan for the Hawks and a game shooting percentage of nearly 58 percent.
Early on, the Nets showed some scary and telling signs that they most likely weren't going to compete with an energized and revitalized Hawks team that looked to be on a mission after their 58-point debacle against the Bulls. The main culprits for Atlanta's offensive explosion were the kinds of guys that always plague the Nets: Small, quick, fast, and accurate three-point shooting point guards. Obviously, that would be Jeff Teague and Devin Harris, who combined for 46 points on 18-29 shooting from the field. D-Will and Joe Johnson simply couldn't keep up with them, giving them open lanes to the basket nearly as much as giving them wide open perimeter jump shot attempts. They didn't appear to be missing Josh Smith much.
The 2nd quarter was much of the same as the 1st, with Atlanta controlling much of the play, hitting most of the shots, looking more interested, and playing much, much, much, much more of the defense. About the only thing the Nets truly did well this evening was hit foul shots, as they were a perfect 17-for-17 from the charity stripe compared to just 11-for-17 from their opponents. Then, as soon as the Nets were down by eight, they were down by 16 and it was halftime. Reverting back to beginning of the season bad tendencies, Brooklyn wasn't able to end any quarter with any sort of momentum and had extreme difficulty in defending the Hawks' multiple dangerous three-point shooters. When a team hits 45 of its 78 shots, odds are the team they were playing against didn't put up much of a fight on the defensive end of the floor. It would be very fair to say the Nets didn't put up much of a defensive fight.
The Nets looked a little bit better in the 2nd half, but it was too little too late. They made a little more movement on offense but it seemed like every time they scored, the Hawks came back with a three-pointer or a defensive stop leading to a quick and easy bucket. The little things like allowing fastbreak points, second-chance points, and committing turnovers crushed Brooklyn whenever trying to go from 13 points down to 10, or 10 to 7. When you can't put those little things together when down by more than 20 points, comebacks are out of the question. We saw that first hand tonight.
Some other observations I had from the game: Only four Nets played well tonight: Brook, who was the best, scored 22 points on 10-14 shooting and nabbed nine rebounds. Reggie Evans scored eight and had five boards. Hump had another good effort, scoring 10 to go with seven rebounds. Finally, Andray Blatche hit some more of his ridiculous shots, scoring 12 points on 6-7 shooting in just 21 minutes…..Joe and D-Will didn't play that poorly, but their shooting numbers (9-33 from three) were awful, being hurt by the high amount of threes they had to take in the 2nd half to give the Nets any shot of a comeback. I guess Joe didn't really miss the good ole empty Philips Arena and its rims very much….Gerald Wallace came back from his ugly rib injury, playing 15 uneventful minutes off the bench. Didn't look 100 percent but wasn't visibly in pain or anything. Expect him to start on Friday.
Looking Ahead
The Nets get another chance to show that they can beat the Hawks, as these teams do it again on Friday in Brooklyn.
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