Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins has always been a little old fashioned with his coaching style, and it doesn’t suit the Nets very well (that’s another story). Despite having a horrible season, and anything but success, the Brooklyn Nets somehow found themselves in the NBA playoffs as the 8th seed, facing the Atlanta Hawks.
The Atlanta Hawks equipped with Paul Milsap, Jeff Teague, Al Horford, Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll are a headache to control offensively and defensively, so what advantage do the Nets have? According to Lionel Hollins and Mike Mazzeo of ESPN New York, they have none:
“I don’t think we have any advantage over the Hawks,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said in a conference call on Thursday. “That’s why they’re 60-22 and that’s why we’re where we are (38-44). They’re a very good team and we have to go out and develop a game plan to control the tempo, rebound and score against them consistently. They’ve played well against a lot of teams, including us, so it’s not like I think we have the advantage going in. We have to develop a game plan that can help us go out and compete.” …
“They have a very versatile team,” Hollins said. “They have a lot of quickness at every single position and they play relatively small. And that puts you at a disadvantage when the other team is quicker than you because they’re smaller than you. We have to combat that by doing whatever we can and develop that plan as we go forward.”
Yes thats right Mr. Hollins, the Brooklyn Nets don’t have an advantage, but they do have the pieces to pull together a shocking one or two wins. A team of Joe Johnson, Deron Williams, Thaddeus Young, and Brook Lopez, should not just give up before they’ve started the game. They are equipped with matchups like Lopez vs. Horford, or Young vs. Milsap, that will be very competitive. On the offensive end, Korver is not a very good defender, and the stronger and bigger Joe Johnson can take advantage of it. Although the series does favor the Hawks heavily, look for the Nets to push them a little bit.
