Game 18 Preview: Atlanta Hawks (11-6) at Brooklyn Nets (8-9)

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When: 7:30 PM EST; Friday, December 5th, 2014

Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY

TV: YES Network

For one of the few times this season, the Nets are feeling pretty confident about themselves. Brooklyn has won three of its last four games, with the last two wins coming in a back-to-back against the Knicks and Spurs. Now, the Nets are just one victory away from .500, which would seem to be a hard-to-believe statement given how the team looked at some points in November.

Meanwhile, with a finally healthy Al Horford, the Hawks have been one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference and Paul Millsap doesn’t even think their chemistry is that strong right now. Atlanta has won four games in a row and is looking for a fifth tonight in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, the Nets are aiming for their third straight win, which would be a season-high.

These teams are pretty interesting matchup-wise, not even focusing on how Joe Johnson spent much of his career with the Hawks. Horford and Millsap make up the strong Atlanta frontcourt that will be tough for Kevin Garnett and Brook Lopez to deal with on both ends of the floor. In the backcourt, Jeff Teague and Deron Williams will go at it and we might even see Johnson try to guard Kyle Korver, who is making over 56 percent of this threes this year.

Probable Lineups

ATL- Jeff Teague (PG), Kyle Korver (SG), DeMarre Carroll (SF), Paul Millsap (PF), Al Horford (C)

BKN- Deron Williams (PG), Joe Johnson (SG), Bojan Bogdanovic (SF), Kevin Garnett (PF), Brook Lopez (C)

Final Thoughts

A win tonight, and the Nets are basically back where they were on October 30th, before their season-opening loss to the Celtics. Considering the up-and-down, overwhelmingly lackluster, sometimes uninspired play of the Nets from then until, I think they’d be pretty happy with this season’s first 18 games being a wash. It also helps that the Eastern Conference is so damn bad.

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