The Nets haven’t exactly set the world on fire this season, limping into the postseason with a 38-44 record and the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference — a spot they only were able to get thanks to a win by the Grizzlies over the Pacers late Wednesday night.
But despite the long odds the Nets face in their first-round series against the Hawks, who finished with the second-best record in the NBA and beat the Nets all four times this season, Brooklyn will enter the playoffs with a clean slate and no pressure whatsoever.
The Nets essentially have been given a free pass to make everyone forget about all of the struggles they endured over the past six months.
“The fun begins now,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “Everybody is 0-0, and it doesn’t matter what one team did against another team in none of these series.
“It’s about going out and competing and putting together a tremendous effort and we’ll play each game one at a time and try to move on to the next series.”
There won’t be a many people expecting the Nets to get past the Hawks — thanks to the way the teams performed this season, not to mention the fact the vast majority of the basketball chattering class had no interest in the Nets making the postseason at all.
Even Hollins admitted it’s going to be a tall task, particularly when he was asked if
the Nets had any advantages over the Hawks heading into the series, which tips off Sunday in Atlanta.
“I don’t think we have any advantage over the Hawks,” Hollins said. “That’s why they are 60 and whatever they are, and that’s why we’re where we are. They’re a very good team. We have to go out and develop a game plan, control the tempo, rebound and score against them consistently.
“They played well against a lot of teams, including us, so it’s not like I think we have an advantage going in. We have to develop a game plan that can help us go out and compete with them.”
Though Hollins spelled out just how big a task the Nets have, Charles Barkley is giving them a chance to at least make the series competitive. Barkley pointed to the one clear advantage the Nets seem to have on paper — the size advantage Brook Lopez has against Al Horford, an All-Star center who is significantly smaller than his Nets counterpart — as the main reason why.
“I don’t see [the Nets] going out really quick,” Barkley said. “I think they’ve got a good chance of making that a competitive series.
“Brook Lopez is going to get layups and dunks. Horford, who is a terrific player, and [Paul] Millsap, they’re going to be shooting jumpers. I just don’t like jump-shooting teams in seven-games series.
“When you’ve got big guys down low punishing people, you’re going to get layups and dunks, and you’re going to get the other team in foul trouble. Jump-shooting teams do not get you in foul trouble.”
The Nets will need to have far more working in their favor than simply getting Lopez going, however, if they want to knock off a Hawks team that went on such a terrific run through December and January that it basically had the top seed in the Eastern Conference locked up before the All-Star break, and spent the past two months tuning up for the playoffs.
But after a frustrating season that’s seen the Nets go from beating the league’s elite one night to losing to its cellar dwellers the next, they’re simply looking forward to starting over in the postseason.
“If you get in, it’s a whole new season,” Joe Johnson said. “Then you wipe your hands clean, and you give it another go.”