This was the game the Nets were praying for.
For whatever reason, the top-seeded Hawks—a finely tuned and well-schemed bunch that accumulated 60 wins during the regular season—left their “A” game on the bench after the first quarter of Sunday’s Game 1 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series in Atlanta.
Maybe the Hawks were a tad out of shape since they hadn’t played a meaningful game in about a month. Or maybe they were a bit overconfident from having swept the Nets in four regular season meetings, only one of which was close.
A team that converted 38 percent of their three-point field goals (second-best in the NBA) over the course of 82 games missed 20 of their 30 attempts from long range on Sunday.