Make no mistake, the Brooklyn Nets were hungry entering their Friday night tilt with the Atlanta Hawks. Sure, they were coming off a win, but a skin-of-their-teeth performance against the Houston Rockets, the undisputed heavyweight loser of the NBA season, didn’t inspire a ton of confidence. And crazier things have happened than a team blowing a two-game lead over two weeks, the lead Brooklyn has over Miami to stay out of the play-in tournament.
But the stakes appeared to be much higher for the Atlanta Hawks. They would enter and leave the Barclays Center smack-dab in the middle of play-in position no matter what, but a win would do wonders in bumping them up to the 7/8 bracket, rather than the 9/10.