So nice… but can they do it twice?

The Atlanta Hawks put together a solid performance for the home crowd at Philips Arena on Wednesday, outpacing the Brooklyn Nets 109-95 to momentarily stop a slide in the conference standings. Now, the scene shifts to Brooklyn for the Hawks’ debut at Barclays Arena.

Against a team with sketchy perimeter defensive options, Jeff Teague stepped up with 28 points and 11 assists, his career scoring high and his fifth double-double of the season. Devin Harris piled on 18 rebounds, 5 assists, 4steals, and boundless vigor that was good to see from a veteran on this team. Harris will probably start again, but look for greater usage of Lou Williams tonight. While Lou is a decidedly better shooter at home (45.3 FG%; 39.4% on the road), he makes up for it by drawing more trips to the line on the road (3.8 FTA per game, vs. 2.5 at home).

At power forward, Al Horford (17 points, 13 rebounds) outmatched Reggie Evans (just 5 rebounds in 21 minutes), while Zaza Pachulia had his way offensively (13 points, 6 offensive rebounds, 8 assists) with Brook Lopez.

Brooklyn’s bigs shot well (29-for-38 among Lopez, Evans, Andray Blatche, Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace and Mirza Teletovic ). But that was neutralized by the Hawks’ collective speed and focus, shooting a season-high 57.7 FG% off 33 assists, also a season high for a regulation game. They effectively throttled the Nets’ handsomely-paid backcourt, as Joe, Deron Williams, and C.J. Watson logged heavy minutes and shot just 9-for-33 (2-for-13 on threes).

Further, Atlanta’s 16 offensive rebounds were the most in over a month, a span of 23 games. The Nets will probably move Gerald Wallace, back from a rib injury, back into the starting lineup, and try to give him and Blatche a greater share of minutes in an attempt to wrest the rebounding advantage back tonight.

How will Josh “Nino” Smith, returning after a one-game suspension for Keepin’ It Real in practice, keep the positive vibes going? He can help by being an effective finisher around the rim. Among players (minimum 25 games) taking more than one shot within two feet of the rim, Atlanta has three players among the top 25 of the league for FG% at that range. Smith (75%) joins Horford (77%) and Harris (74%) in that group, while Ivan Johnson (70%) isn’t far behind.

The trick will be to have guards attack the rim as they did in Atlanta, and if they need to pass, the bigs must be ready to gather the ball and go up quickly before the Nets’ frontcourt can react. Ringing up assists in that way will improve their chances to win. Atlanta is 10-1 (the exception being a one-point loss to Detroit on Jan. 4) when they gather more than 25 assists.

Aside from getting to the line (a perfect 7-for-7), Joe Johnson was a literal non-entity in the outcome of the game (4-for-15 FGs, 0-for-4 3FGs). A lot of that was, as AUhawksfan noted in the last Game Thread, was from Joe pushing up shots and passing out of double-teams.

He’s certainly noticing it. When asked whether he deserves another All-Star nod, the New York Daily News reported Joe replied, "Definitely, if they're going to keep doubling and tripling me as hard as they doing.”

Joe added, "It's not really frustrating to get trapped because I expected that. The frustrating part was not being in the right spots to make them pay. If we had made them pay a few times, then maybe they wouldn't have doubled so much. It just didn't seem like we knew where to be."

He’ll certainly be looking for fellow All-Star Deron Williams when he’s getting trapped tonight. Deron averages just 14.8 PPG at away games, but 18.3 PPG on the herringbone floor at Barclays.

The sweet spot for Joe himself is within 3-9 feet of the basket, particularly from the right side. He’s leading the NBA among players averaging more than two attempts at that range with 51.2 FG%. Atlanta going big will allow the fun of Josh Smith helping Kyle Korver and Harris deny Joe those spots on the floor.

Free Johan Petro! The backup center started ten games and played in 59 of the Nets’ 66 games last season. He’d love to avoid another DNP-CD by spelling Pachulia for a short stretch. Anthony Morrow is back home with DeShawn Stevenson and will have to save their pseudo-homecoming for another night.

With Indiana and Chicago on the road as well tonight, a two-game sweep of the Nets could bounce the Hawks back up as far as the 3-spot in the East.

Go Hawks!

~lw3