Hawks at Nets Game Preview

The Hawks will enter the Barclays Center seeking their first win of the season against the Nets.

After one of their most disappointing games of the season, the Hawks will look to regain some momentum Sunday evening in Brooklyn. Atlanta is 0-2 against the Nets this season, but the opponent will look vastly different on Sunday. Caris LeVert, who has yet to face the Hawks this season, recently came back from a 24-game absence, and according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, point guard Kyrie Irving, who hasn’t played since November 14, “is likely to make his return” from a 26-game absence against the Hawks.

Kyrie Irving is likely to make his return to the Nets lineup on Sunday against Atlanta, league sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 11, 2020

For Atlanta, the timing of his return couldn’t be worse, but Irving will be a welcome addition to the Nets, who have just one win in their last eight games. Brooklyn lost seven games in a row after their December 21 victory over the Hawks and only just snapped the skid on Friday with a win over the Heat. He averaged 28.5 points and 7.2 assists per game – both career-highs in 11 games prior to a right shoulder impingement suffered in early November, and will give Brooklyn a far more reliable offensive catalyst than Spencer Dinwiddie, who has performed admirably as the centerpiece of the Nets’ offense. Dinwiddie has arguably compiled an All Star-caliber season, averaging 22.5 points and 6.4 assists while stabilizing an offense that would likely be hopeless without him, even if he’s slightly underqualified for that role.

Game Time: Sunday, January 12, 2020, 6:00 p.m. ET

Location: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY

TV: FOX Sports Southeast, YES Network

Streaming: NBA League Pass, FOX Sports Go

Irving’s presence should help restore the team’s equilibrium. Dinwiddie can thrive again as a bench scorer and complement to other stars, while role players like Joe Harris and Taurean Prince will find their shots more easily and under less duress with a more threatening weapon at the point of attack. Irving is one of the NBA’s great failsafes; a possession is almost never dead so long as Irving has the ball (incidentally, his injured teammate, Kevin Durant is among the few insurance policies more reliable than Irving). That establishes a high floor for a given possession, even if it’s unclear whether Irving can serve as the primary offensive option on a great team.

The answer to that question may not matter this season or the next. Brooklyn is not a championship contender with or without Irving in the lineup, and when Durant returns next season, the team won’t need the point guard to create every possession like they will this year. LeVert, meanwhile, helps relieve pressure from whichever guard handles the ball beside him. The 25-year-old will be a pivotal piece of the Nets’ trajectory over the next four years as a complementary scorer and playmaker, but has been limited to just 12 games this season due to a right thumb injury.

Atlanta’s first game against the Nets was the spark behind its recent shift toward a smaller starting unit, with John Collins playing center and De’Andre Hunter at power forward. Brooklyn plays with four perimeter players orbiting center Jarrett Allen, who seldom strays from the paint on either end of the floor. Harris, Prince, and Garrett Temple run off screens and space the floor while Dinwiddie or Irving controls the ball and Allen screens.

It seems certain that Lloyd Pierce will stick with his small starting lineup on Sunday, not only because it helps the Hawks match up with Brooklyn, but because it gives Atlanta’s young core opportunity to grow and develop alongside one another. That fivesome has outscored opponents by 18 points in 37 minutes this season, and the trio of Collins, Kevin Huerter, and Trae Young has logged only 123 minutes together as the team draws near the halfway point of the season.

The Hawks’ last outing against Brooklyn was one of their more spectacular collapses of the season. Atlanta led by as many as 18 in the game and 13 entering the fourth quarter before being outscored 37-14 over the final 12 minutes. Earlier in the year, the Hawks played one of their best offensive games of the season but failed to solve the Nets’ offense. In both meetings, Dinwiddie and Garrett Temple have proven difficult to stop. On Sunday Atlanta will have another threat with which to concern itself, which the Nets hope will cause everything else to run more smoothly.