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Look at that determination! And forehead! |
If I told you that the Nets only scored 93 points last night and gave up 10 to Johan "Beaker" Petro alone, you might think that they lost last night's contest with the Atlanta Hawks. Au contraire, as Brooklyn actually held the Hawks as a team to 80 in Atlanta last night, leading to the Nets' 3rd-straight win and first in Atlanta in a few years. The Nets extended their advantage over the home team to 2.5 games in the Eastern Conference standings, in addition to improving their mark in the season series to 2-1.
The Nets got off to a slow start, going down 11-1 right off the bat but managed to fight back and tie the score up by the end of the first quarter. Although he didn't hit seven threes in the period like he did on Friday, D-Will did hit a big triple late in the first to help the comeback effort. Where this game would turn in the Nets' favor would be in the next quarter, when the Brooklyn bench took over as a lifeless Hawks' reserve effort didn't give much in the form of resistance.
The usual Brooklyn bench suspects–Andray, C.J., Mirza, Keith Bogans–did what they tend to go in big Nets wins: Hitting threes, playing tight and unrelenting D, driving to the hoop effectively, and just running an efficient offensive attack. One missing aspect, though, was MarShon Brooks, who didn't score a point yesterday and only played four minutes. In a blowout like last game's was, I really don't see why Brooks couldn't et any type of significant time, especially when Mirza played 25 minutes and didn't do a whole either.
The Nets were able to hold their 14-point halftime lead throughout much of the second half, building it up to 20 at one point in the third quarter. However, things would get a little bit dicey–as they tend to get for the Nets–later in the fourth when Atlanta trimmed its deficit down close to 10 points. In a night that was filled with positives for the good guys, the constant weakness of this team was exemplified in that they just couldn't put the ultimate out-of-reach touch necessary to finish the Hawks off once-and-for-all earlier in the second half so that the game would never be in doubt. I guess that's just nitpicking at this point.
Some other observations I had from the game: Joe Johnson's second return to Atlanta wasn't very successful for him, but obviously worked out fine for his team. Joe hit just four of the 13 shots he took on the evening, missing all five three-point attempts, en route to eight points. However, he filled up the stat sheet well in other ways, accumulating four steals, four boards, and five assists to boot……D-Will wasn't great either, but still managed to score 17 points and dish out six assists while only committing one turnover (!). Also, the Nets as a team just committed nine turnovers in the whole game, which is a great sign for this squad…..Brook returned to his normal form, being basically unstoppable and scoring 18 points on 8-16 shooting in just 28 minutes, while grabbing nine rebounds (!!!!). Petro can only stop Brook in his dreams, and without Zaza Pachulia due to injury, Atlanta had no one else to effectively defend the Nets' All-Star……Reggie Evans grabbed nine boards. #REGGIEEVANSREBOUNDCOUNT……Andray scored 18 points on 9-11 shooting with four steals of his own. I don't get it either.
Looking Ahead
The Nets are back at it again tomorrow, as they take on the 76ers in the City of Brotherly Love.
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