It’s safe to say the Nets didn’t expect to win every game in 2013. But after seeing their seven-game winning streak to open the new year end with a thud in Wednesday’s 109-95 drubbing at the hands of the Hawks in Atlanta, the question now is: How will the Nets respond when they face Atlanta again tonight at Barclays Center.
“We’ve got to bounce back,” said interim coach P.J. Carlesimo after Wednesday’s loss, which saw the Nets fall to 9-2 since he took over for Avery Johnson. “We’ve been on a heck of a roll, which is great, but you usually don’t get on those kinds of rolls. It’s a question of how you come back from a loss.”
The Nets’ previous loss was on New Year’s Eve in San Antonio, when they scored five points in the third quarter on their way to a lopsided blowout loss to the Spurs, ending their miserable month of December. But the Nets responded with a resounding victory over the Thunder in Oklahoma City — one of the league’s toughest places to play — that kicked off the seven-game win streak.
“I expect a different Nets team,” said Joe Johnson, who saw his return to Atlanta after spending the previous seven seasons there spoiled as he finished with 15 points on 4-for-15 shooting. “I expect for us to be a lot different [tonight].”
One thing the Nets will almost certainly handle differently is the way the Hawks double-teamed and trapped Johnson whenever he touched the ball. That forced Johnson to be very passive early in Wednesday’s loss, and the Nets clearly struggled to find a way to take advantage of the openings that strategy gave them as the game progressed.
“It’s not frustrating that they were double-teaming and trapping me, because I was expecting that,” Johnson said. “But it’s more frustrating that guys were not getting in the right spots to make them pay.
“If we had made them pay a few times, they probably wouldn’t have doubled as much. But the fact that we just seemed like we didn’t know where to be, they just did it the whole game.”
The Nets will also have to do better in transition, and particularly with their transition defense, after the Hawks burned them to the tune of a 29-12 advantage, including multiple fast breaks where they had one or two players behind the entire Nets defense after the Nets missed shots at the other end of the floor.
“Offensively, when we shoot the basketball, us as guards have to get back,” Johnson said. “But for some reason, we just had bad floor balance the whole game.”
But after Wednesday’s lackluster showing, the Nets were glad they would get another chance at the Hawks tonight.
“It’s great we’re playing against the same team,” said Brook Lopez. “Obviously we got a little peak of what it’s going to be like, and we definitely have stuff to learn from.”