Another Nets game, another loss. Brooklyn, after yet another disappointing defeat in which both the defensive effort and coaching decisions could be questioned, fell 101-87 in Atlanta to the Hawks on Wednesday for their fifth-straight loss to open the 2015-16 season. The Nets actually played well in the second and third quarters, but were terrible in the fourth quarter, yet again, and completely fell apart down the stretch.
The first quarter did not start well for Brooklyn, as the usual culprits of terrible perimeter defense and a lack of ball movement gave the Hawks — without Kyle Korver (rest) — on the second half of a back-to-back an early lead. The Nets also committed a bunch of turnovers which eventually resulted in a season-high 19 giveaways that led to 25 Atlanta points. Plus, no one on the team — once again — could hit an open three (Brooklyn went 5-for-21 from deep on the night).
As per usual, one dreadful 12 minutes led to a decent 12 minutes for the Nets in the second quarter. Behind nice boosts from Shane Larkin and Bojan Bogdanovic, Brooklyn fought back to take a two-point lead at the half. Outscoring the Hawks 26-18 in the frame, the Nets took advantage of the weaker Atlanta bench and actually made the good shots their offensive sets gave them.
The second half didn’t start so well as the Hawks — with Al Horford, Dennis Schroder and Jeff Teague scoring at ease — used a 7-0 to turn a 50-49 deficit into a 56-50 lead that threatened to put the game out of reach for the offensive-challenged Nets. However, Brooklyn responded immediately with a 9-0 spurt of its own that was predicated on getting Brook Lopez the ball at the rim. With the size advantage over both Horford and Paul Millsap, Lopez had a big third quarter in scoring and rebounding and looked as sharp as he has all season.
But, as the Nets have been prone to do often, they essentially forgot about Lopez for the rest of the game, which wasn’t helped out by him not playing most of the fourth quarter for the second game in a row. In his stead was Andrea Bargnani, who committed multiple bad turnovers, clogged up the offense and was a sieve on defense, allowing Teague and Schroder to take and make floaters over him with ease. All of a sudden, the Nets found themselves down eight in the middle of the fourth quarter when Brook re-entered, but by then it was too late.
The Nets made some shots here and there down the stretch, but couldn’t get any stops to speak off and the loss was guaranteed when Kent Bazemore drilled back-to-back threes toward the end of regulation. Although the final score doesn’t indicate how the game was very close for around 42 minutes, it does show how the Nets — in two straight games — were horrific in the fourth quarter when they could have sneaked away with a win had they played decently well for a few minutes. Part of that is due to the general poor play while part is due to some strange coaching decisions by Lionel Hollins.
Some other thoughts from the game: First off, there is no good reason for why Andrea Bargnani played roughly the same amount of time as Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Thomas Robinson. Sure, Bargnani made his only two shots but he was roasted on defense due to his lack of mobility for the first half of the fourth quarter and is horribly incompetent at grabbing loose ball rebounds. He doesn’t space the floor well because of how slow he is and doesn’t figure in the pick-and-roll game because he is regularly called for illegal screens. On the other end of the court, he’s unwilling to step up in the paint to defend driving point guards who can easily take floaters over him when he doesn’t challenge them. Hollis-Jefferson has already proved to be a lockdown one-on-one defender who was the only Net tonight with a positive +/- and the only Net with a positive one on the entire season. It’s obvious the team plays well when he’s in the game and much poorly when he isn’t. Also, Robinson has his flaws on offense but is a better option than Bargnani cause he at least possesses some athleticism and can clean up the glass….Joe Johnson and Jarrett Jack combined to play 57 minutes and go 4-for-20 from the field for 11 points. Not a typo: Joe and Jarrett made just 20 percent of their shots tonight and were 0-of-5 from three to boot. Joe missed a bunch of open leaners and threes as he has so far this season, so it’s fairly troubling as to why his scoring ability has suddenly evaporated. With Jarrett, he forced the issue too much — sound familiar? — and took a bunch of low-percentage shots….Thaddeus Young (14 points and 10 rebounds) and Brook (27 points and 11 rebounds) have quickly established themselves as the two best players on this team but even they couldn’t do enough to lead this team to its first win of the season. They are the only guys who can be relied on for points and rebounding and are pretty good defensively as well. The real trouble they had today was with Al Horford, who led the Hawks with 21 points on 10 shots. He took, and made, too many uncontested jumpers that he was left open for due to poor communication between Thad and Brook. Outside of that, they contained Millsap pretty well but did commit a combined six turnovers, which was the single-worst aspect of how the Nets played.
Onto the next one: Friday at Barclays against the winless Lakers. If the Nets don’t win this one, don’t be surprised if they don’t win a game in November.
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