Game Thread: Nets @ Hawks -- 3/9

[Jamaaliver]

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[ducler]

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[DirtybirdGA]

On the way up, I gotta get my rome on though and check out the digs.

[lethalweapon3]

The Offer was right there on his table, with a working pen, awaiting his decision.

Masai Ujiri, of all people, was right there in his Buckhead pad. So was Dwane Casey.

DeMarre Carroll had been preparing to make the rounds typical for unrestricted NBA free agents, with flights lined up to Detroit and other locales to test the market might for his services, before returning to Atlanta to see whether his Hawks would top the best offer.

But for players like him, this wasn’t typical. This here was $60 Million, U.S. bucks at that, to play for a coach and a GM that effusively praised how they admired Carroll, the versatile, junkyard-minded, 3-and-D glue guy that sparked Atlanta to its greatest season to date.

“They just made me feel like it (Toronto) was home,” the Alabama-raised Carroll would later tell SheridanHoops. But alongside the heart-warming syrupy sentiments about becoming part of the “Raptor Family”, there was a clock-ticking conundrum. The Offer would only stand for as long as it would take DeMarre’s newfound “fam”, Ujiri, to catch the next flight out to Beverly Hills.

The Raptors had other big-ticket free agents to woo, notably LaMarcus Aldridge, and Ujiri could not promise Carroll that The Offer on his table would last long, once the Raptors’ contingent took off from Hartsfield-Jackson. Yet the Hawks forward appreciated that these folks flew cross-countries to ring his doorbell on the 1st of July, bearing an Offer that seemed to good to pass up. After all, nobody from the Hawks was ringing his phone. Not on July 1, at the opening bell of the league’s free agency period.

A few scribbles later, Toronto had its newest star to parade around, and Carroll was packing for a trip to his new Canadian home. One day soon, when a packed Jurassic Park is wildly celebrating its first NBA championship, Drake, fans and media will all remember the day the path to greatness started. July 1, 2015, at DeMarre Carroll’s crib down in the ATL. Or, so I imagine, he was led to believe at the time.

The brutality of professional sports is made evident by the role of the General Manager, whose job it is to sell you, the player, on ideals like togetherness, family, home, pieces of puzzles, brotherhood, all the while shopping you to her or his colleagues, in hopes there may be some loose unprotected firsts and cap space lying around for the taking.

Ujiri did his part in playing up the role of Monty Hall. Carroll, meanwhile, could not foresee what awaited him behind Door Number 2. Prolonged injury absences and knee surgeries, a diminished role in favor of youngsters like P.J. Tucker and Norman Powell, more humbling playoff losses at the hands of LeBron James. And, a banishing trade to the downtrodden Brooklyn Nets, weeks after his 31st birthday, just halfway through the four-year deal he made with the Raptors.

When playing Let’s Make A Deal, the upside to picking the wrong Door is that, with the right mix of rice and curry, goats can be mighty tasty. Carroll is no longer stewing about the “iso ball” and “lack of trust” in Toronto. Instead, he has found himself in a cozier situation alongside Kenny Atkinson, his former Hawks assistant coach, and a Brooklyn Nets team that figured out years ago that they have no choice but to be patient in building a contender.

How comfy is Carroll? After making almost 48 percent of his shots during his two seasons in Atlanta, and just under 40 percent in Toronto, JYD is shooting just 39.3 percent this year with the Nets. Last season, he started in each of his 73 games for Brooklyn. This season, while collecting the final team-high $15.4 million of the deal he swung with Toronto, he hasn’t started once in 54 games. And yet, the pending unrestricted free agent hasn’t felt this self-assured about his place in the NBA in a long time.

“It was an opportunity for me to see how I can impact the game, watching it from the side first,” Carroll recently told the New York Post. “I think that was the biggest thing, to get used to it, to get comfortable to it and embrace it. That’s what I tried to do.” Coach Kenny was tempted to grant DMC his first start of the season, on Monday before the Nets’ wipeout of the visiting Maveremnants. But the Nets’ staff decided it was better, Atkinson said, “to keep (Carroll) in his comfort zone.”

The player who effectively kick-started a perennial-playoff team’s dissolution, Carroll returns to face the remodeling Hawks at State Farm Arena (7 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, YES Network in The BK) for the first time this season. His Nets are seeking a franchise-high 5th consecutive win against the Hawks, and their first head-to-head season sweep since 2004-05. But, frankly, Atlanta is not the former team he has his sights set upon.

If all goes well and Brooklyn (34-33) returns to the NBA Playoffs for the first time since the 60-win Hawks showed the Nets the door in 2015 (behind DeMarre’s team-high 17.5 PPG and 54.3 FG% for the series), their first opponent could very well be Ujiri’s Raptors. Carroll recognizes the Raps parted ways with a couple more “family” members, notably DeMar DeRozan and Casey. Nevertheless, he would relish the opportunity to at least put a scare in the “home”-wrecker, Ujiri, and trip up the Raptors’ designs to claim an NBA title without him in tow.

Under the oversight of team exec Sean Marks, the Nets have compiled a collection of players that prior teams were quick to discard. The headliner is former Laker and freshly-minted All-Star guard D’Angelo Russell (20.5 PPG, 6.8 APG), but the description applies nearly as well to players young – ex-Piston Spencer Dinwiddie (out tonight, personal leave), former Cavalier Joe Harris (NBA-leading 47.1 3FG%), ex-Hornet Treveon Graham (out tonight, sore back), ex-Blazers Shabazz Napier and Allen Crabbe (51.9 corner 3FG%, tied for 3rd in NBA) – and not-so-young – Carroll, Ed Davis (career-bests in O-Reb% and D-Reb%) and Jared Dudley.

Thrown into the Raptors-Nets trade deal centered on Carroll was a second-round pick. The Nets used that 2018 pick to take Rodions Kurucs, and the Latvian-born rookie starts ahead of Carroll on the depth chart. Brooklyn has gone 20-11 when Kurucs got the starting nod, the 21-year-old’s development allowing Brooklyn to bring the 2018 first-rounder from the Carroll deal, Bosnian 19-year-old Dzanan Musa, along slowly.

Atkinson relies on swingmen to fill the middle slots between Russell and second-year pro Jarrett Allen in the starting lineups, Kurucs’ 6-foot-9 height making him the default starter at the 4-spot. As demonstrated on Monday (5-for-7 3FGs, matching Carroll) versus Dallas, the Nets are turning to Rodi more frequently to stretch the floor, not just to clean up the glass when Allen (15 points, 11 rebounds vs. CLE on Wednesday) is diving for blocks.

Coach Kenny’s rotations allow the Nets to properly rest the veterans while having the luxury of Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert (quickly rehabbed foot dislocation) as sixth-men extraordinaire. Dealing with multiple injuries in the frontcourt (Tyler Zeller, who started 33 games last season for Brooklyn, is with the Hawks on a 10-day), Atlanta (22-44) is not going to win the battle of the benches, even without Dinwiddie available tonight for the Nets (BRK bench outscored opponents’ reserves an NBA-high 56 times so far). But the Hawks will need a more complete effort among their starters to compete for 48 minutes.

Hawks head honcho Lloyd Pierce can rely on a better-focused Taurean Prince this evening, following the forward’s ejection from Wednesday 111-104 home loss versus San Antonio. Due to injury, Prince couldn’t shoulder much blame on the last two occasions these teams met.

In January, John Collins (25th double-double this season vs. SAS on Wednesday, ten rebounds shy of 1,000 for his young career) played like the only man possessed (30 points, 14 rebounds), as his Hawks teammates shot a collective 24-for-78 (30.8 team FG%) from the field, including 5-for-33 from beyond the three-point line. Atlanta started out like a house on fire in the opening quarter, up 38-23 on the hosts, before disintegrating into cinders in a 116-100 defeat.

The month before, Collins (13-for-19 vs. BRK on Dec. 16) had plenty of offensive help, but the Hawks couldn’t get stops or keep the Nets off the free throw line. Led by Russell (32 points, 7 assists, no TOs), eight Nets scored in double figures as Brooklyn shot over 55 percent from the field as a team, 30-for-33 from the line, and cruised from a 42-23 start to a 144-127 finish.

Collins will be able to use his size advantage to get in position for plenty of big buckets this evening, ideally drawing Allen as a help defender to create even more havoc. But he needs to contribute as more than just a rebounder on defense, and he’ll need help at both ends, including from Prince, who was on his way to a nice Wednesday night (a pair of threes, five D-Rebs, a steal and a block in 19 minutes vs. SAS) before coming unglued on quick-draw referee Scott Foster.

Fellow starters Kevin “Sweet Potato Pie” Huerter (2-for-10 FGs vs. SAS) and Alex Len (filling in for Dewayne Dedmon) must be ready to convert open looks. In this matchup of the NBA East’s premier under-25 small guards, Trae Young (12-for-33 FGs in last two games; 4 assists vs. SAS) will find it a little easier to escape and pass the ball out of traps than he has recently. He can make things even easier on himself by continuing to move without the ball, at best to find uncontested looks across the court, at worst as a defender-drawing decoy.

My long-running campaign has been to cram as many Dirty South Division teams into the NBA Playoffs – and thereby out of this year’s Draft Lottery – as possible. That means not only getting the heat, Magic and Hornets to step it up, but for Brooklyn and Detroit to start slipping, and soon.

The Nets (14-17 on the road, two wins in last seven road games) host Detroit next week before spending the next seven games on the road, all versus Western Conference playoff hopefuls until concluding at Philadelphia. In the spirit of March Madness, today, I sure hope the Hawks will bring more than some shears and a ladder to cut down these Nets!

Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3

[DirtybirdGA]

On the way up, I gotta get my roam on though and check out the digs.

[Spud2nique]

Awesome stuff as usual lw3! Kevin “sweet potato pie” Huerter? Why did I just say that in a southern voice... a lady too..

I loved DMC when he was here with us during our “glory” years. Just an absolute glue guy much like our old squads with Ty Corbin. He’s a guy I would love to see winning a championship. I love Kenny Atkinson as well and thought the world of him and his relationship with players and his work habits. A Raptors Nets series might not be as lobsided as folks might believe.

Lw3, I didn’t know you loved the southwest division! Regionally known, nationally respected!

GO HAWKS!!!

[DirtybirdGA]

At least Collins is doing well.

[benhillboy]

Like Trae realizing he doest have anything on the fast break, slowing it down to the semi-break and getting what he wants.

[observer1995]

The shooting might not reflect it, sure, but unless he starts forcing bad shots, Young is having a better game this game. Better floor impact.

[benhillboy]

Damn was the Tyler Zeller signing even announced? I thought he was Kosta Koufus. I guess I’m just gonna have to accept this Jaylen Adams thing huh.

[King Ken]

The shooting might not reflect it, sure, but unless he starts forcing bad shots, Young is having a better game this game. Better floor impact.

His floor game is tremendous

[observer1995]

Collins with an absolute monster game man.

[DirtybirdGA]

Triple double for Trae young!!!

[King Ken]

First career triple double for Trae and Collins with 33/20

[hawkmanreturns]

Superb competitank!

[King Ken]

VC misses the 3 pointer to win the game

[lethalweapon3]

Tankalicious!

The tape of this game sure isn't headed to Springfield with all those missed shots by both teams. But regroup and pick apart whoever shows up in a Pelicans jersey tomorrow!

Go Hawks!
~lw3

[Radioblacktive1]

Great loss. Monster game from the Baptist. Trae with his first triple double, crazy to think what his point total would be if he didn’t leave all those points on floor. Easily another 30+ point game if he nailed the go-ahead buckets.

[LeftHandThriller]

beautiful. Monster games by Collins and Trae that end in a competitive loss.

[lethalweapon3]

105 field goal attempts, in regulation. Wow!
TEN total individual turnovers. Double Wow!

~lw3