BROOKLYN — Watching the first week of an NBA season with any sort of self-respect means trying as hard as possible not to get carried away for any particular reason. The second week, though? Great time to get hyped. With five-ish games in the books, you can’t crown a champion, but it’s enough to know who’s playing decent basketball and to hone in on your pet teams. If you’re listening, the Brooklyn Nets are 3–2 and would like to make a case.
After all, who needs lottery picks to convince a group of guys to play hard? Not Kenny Atkinson, whose aggressive pace-and-space principles have been visibly ingrained in a tough young set of players who led the league in pace last season and are very much back at it.