When: 5:30 PM EST; Sunday, April 19th, 2015
Where: Phillips Arena; Atlanta, GA
TV: TNT/YES
Well, it wasn’t easy or pretty, but the Nets are back in the playoffs for the third-straight season and open up their postseason slate on the road against the No. 1 seed Atlanta Hawks. Brooklyn finished with a record 22 games worse than Atlanta’s but sneaked into the playoffs on the last day thanks to a win over Orlando and an Indiana loss to the Grizzlies, Lionel Hollins’ former team.
Two seasons ago, in their first year in Brooklyn, the Nets faced off with the Chicago Bulls in Round 1 as the No. 4 seed but eventually lost in seven games. Last year, as the No. 6, the Nets took down division rival Toronto in the maximum seven games as well. If history is any indication of what 2015 will hold, Nets-Hawks will also go seven games.
However, the Hawks are a much, much better team than the Bulls were in 2013 or the Raptors were in 2014. Atlanta was far and away the Eastern Conference’s best team this season, as indicated by its 60-22 record, and easily handled the Nets in head-to-head matchups, sweeping the four-game season series.
But, things haven’t been going completely smoothly for the Hawks as of late. About 10 days ago, when in New York to take on the Nets, key Atlanta role players Pero Antic and Thabo Sefolosha were arrested in a Manhattan nightclub scuffle in which Pacers’ forward Chris Copeland was stabbed. Antic and Sefalosha were later released from prison but Sefalosha suffered a broken leg and is out for the playoffs.
Also, Atlanta–admittedly, the Hawks have had nothing to play for over the past few weeks–ended the regular season with three straight losses. Obviously, the Nets, who got blown out in back-to-back contests by the Bucks and Bulls before beating the Magic, aren’t on a winning streak but looked really good for much of the last 30 days or so. Most importantly, the Nets are as healthy as they could be, with Alan Anderson likely to return from a nagging ankle injury and possibly Mirza Teletovic from his mid-season blood clot scare. Mirza won’t play today, but could return at some point in the series.
The main problem for Brooklyn is that Atlanta is one of the league’s most efficient teams at both ends of the floor. The Hawks are in the top-seven in offensive and defensive efficiency while the Nets are in the bottom-18 for each. Simply put, Atlanta is a fundamentally sound team that is coached well, shoots the ball at a strong clip–Kyle Korver is a machine, more or less–and makes scoring hard for its opponent.
Meanwhile, the Nets are inconsistent, prone to long scoring droughts and aren’t really good at rebounding. On paper, this looks like a really tough matchup for the Nets, and that’s because it is. If they’re going to win today–and make some more noise as the series progresses–they’ll need to play their absolute best basketball for a full 48 minutes with none to a few mistakes here and there. This is because the Hawks simply don’t make many mistakes, and when they do, they’re few and far between.
Probable Lineups
BKN- Deron Williams (PG), Markel Brown (SG), Joe Johnson (SF), Thaddeus Young (PF), Brook Lopez (C)
ATL- Jeff Teague (PG), Kyle Korver (SG), DeMarre Carroll (SF), Paul Millsap (PF), Al Horford (C)
Final Thoughts
One interesting storyline for this series is how the Nets’ Joe Johnson will be going against the team he was a member of for seven seasons. Johnson knows Phillips Arena as well as anyone on Brooklyn and could get a boost by competing with the team that–in a desperate attempt to shed his contact–shipped him off to the Nets for spare parts. No player likes getting disrespected and even though Joe is a relatively staid guy, he might still hold resentment for how his Hawks tenure ended. Nothing better in the playoffs than some bad blood.
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