The Nets had Saturday off, licking their wounds after getting thrashed by the Hawks on Friday night in Brooklyn and failing to get back to .500 for the season.
But when the Nets get back on the practice court Sunday at their New Jersey facility, the thing that stood out most about Friday's loss — the disparity in athleticism between the two teams — isn't something that a rest day will have changed.
This year's version of the Nets has plenty of things in abundance — experience, offensive firepower and size, to name a few. But one thing it doesn't have much of is athleticism, and the Hawks exposed that weakness — and then some — in Friday night's 98-75 blowout loss.
"They just seemed a lot faster than us, quicker than us, better than us tonight," Deron Williams said after the game, perfectly summing up the way the game looked to everyone else.
The Hawks — who as the final part of the Joe Johnson trade in July 2012 have the right to swap first-round picks with the Nets this season if they finish higher in the standings — are a perfect example of the evolution in the game today. They have athleticism in abundance, and almost always have five players on the court capable of shooting from 3-point range.
Their coach, Mike Budenholzer, is a longtime disciple of Gregg Popovich, and the Hawks do a lot of the things the Spurs do with a younger, more athletic roster.
"I thought we would come out and play better," Nets coach Lionel Hollins said. "But they're a good basketball team, and a very quick and athletic basketball team."
When the game went sideways for the Nets in the second quarter — when they missed 13 of their first 14 shots and finished the quarter 5-for-19 with six turnovers — it was Atlanta's athleticism that hurt them.
After the game, the Nets said they were a step slow, and it did look from the start like they were just off on the night, something Hollins rightly pointed out happens a few times a year to any NBA team.
But it seemed to be a little more than that in the second quarter, when it seemed as if the Hawks' defense was preventing the Nets from getting where they needed to in order to run their offense effectively.
Each possession seemed to end with the Nets forcing up a tough shot or turning the ball over after the Hawks wrecked whatever they tried to do. The game seemed over when, on back-to-back possessions, Jeff Teague stole the ball and raced down court, once getting a fastbreak layup and the next trip drawing a foul and making a pair of free throws to give the Hawks a 17-point lead.
Now lacking in athleticism doesn't mean the Nets are incapable of playing with and beating teams such as the Hawks, but it does mean they have to execute far better than they did against Atlanta.
In fact, the Nets can look to the Spurs — the team they beat 95-93 in overtime Wednesday in Brooklyn — as proof this is possible. But playing that way does leave for a smaller margin error, as the Nets learned Friday.
The Nets will need to find a way to navigate that margin better moving forward, however, or there will be more games like this one to come.
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