The Nets hosted the first of two back-to-back home matchups against the Atlanta Hawks on Thursday night in a game where interim head coach Kevin Ollie made his Barclays Center debut.
Brooklyn played four straight road games in Toronto, Minnesota, Memphis and Orlando after Ollie took over for former head coach Jacque Vaughn during the All-Star break.
“It should be nice,” Ollie said ahead of tipoff. “I know it’s going to be nice. I’m going to feel the spirit of Brooklyn, our fans, that’s what we play for. And hopefully, our team can come out here and show them a great performance and we can get a great win at our home-court, starting this home-court stretch that we have, four games in a row. So, we want to really take care of business because we know our schedule coming up. We got a lot of road games, so we need to — it’s vital that we take care of these home games now.”
It is probably not a stretch to say that these back-to-back matchups against the Hawks could make or break the Nets’ Play-In hopes. Atlanta had a four-game lead for tenth place in the Eastern Conference standings entering Monday night. Brooklyn was in 11th place and looking to make up ground.
The Nets have not won back-to-back games since late January, and if they can at least split these games against the Hawks then their Play-In hopes would remain alive. Going 0-2 would give Atlanta a six-game lead on 10th place, which may prove to be an insurmountable advantage with just 22 games left heading into next week.
“These next few games are very crucial especially against the Hawks, them being ahead of us,” Lonnie Walker IV said. “Just trying to make the playoffs [and] make that playoff push. I think we’re just trying to be very disciplined and I’m very aware as far as the game plan. Knowing what we have to do because every possession for this game counts. We can’t have no screw ups. We can’t have no missteps or nothing. We all have to be aligned and understand what we’re trying to do.”
Hawks All-Star point guard Trae Young, who averages 26.4 points and 10.8 assists per game, recently underwent surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left hand and will be out for at least the next few weeks, so the Nets did not have to face Atlanta at full strength. But a Young-less Hawks team presents its own set of challenges.
“They’re going to be a little bit bigger; Trae is a great player, but you got [Dejounte] Murray, who’s a great guard himself who can also win them games,” Dorian Finney-Smith said. “They probably won’t be as good offensively, but they are definitely going to be better defensively, just size-wise, so it’s going to be a good game.”
Said Ollie: “They were defensive-minded with Trae in there, but they’re really converting off of turnovers right now. I think the last two games they’ve had 35 turnovers. And they’re just playing fast and converting all those turnovers into fastbreak points. So we really have to take care of the ball — that’s our emphasis. And in the games we did take care of the ball, we won. So we really have to make an emphasis on coming to jump stops, pump faking, taking care of the ball, seeing the open man on time and on target and making sure we get great possessions and not empty possessions.”
Simmons, Thomas Ruled Out
The Nets were without Ben Simmons (left leg soreness) and Cam Thomas (right ankle sprain) against the Hawks on Thursday.
Simmons, who sat out against the Magic on Tuesday, was a late addition to the team’s injury report earlier in the afternoon. Thomas missed his second straight game after suffering his injury late in the fourth quarter against Orlando.
“It’s a tough adjustment, it’s a challenge and adjustment because Cam and Ben, they do things on our team that really allows us to play with pace and break down defense, especially CT breaking down defenses, we can play off of him,” Ollie said. “Ben pushing the pace, rebounding and so we’re going to miss those guys… Our medical team is doing a great job, they keep us in constant communication. Hopefully we can get those guys back soon.
Both are considered day-to-day, per Ollie.
Wake-Up Call
The Nets had lost three of their last four games by 26 or more points entering Monday night. The team’s struggles have served as a wake-up call for everyone involved.
“Yeah, we just can’t let our shot-making affect our overall game and our defense, and I feel like that’s what’s been happening. We’ve been missing shots that we usually make, and sometimes it can affect our overall game. You know, we got to let our defense get us out and get us easy shots, and when we ain’t making shots, we got a whole other team, and take that as a challenge to really stop other teams from scoring.”
