BROOKLYN -- A northbound flight and a change of venue did not change much.
The Atlanta Hawks offense hit its lowest point in over a month in a 91-83 Game 3 loss to the eighth-seeded Brooklyn Nets, but this was a final result seven days in the making. There was much talk of Brooklyn's rejuvenation in the lower corridors of Barclays Center, the new life of a veteran opponent, but the reality is that Atlanta's underwhelming play has yet to give the lower seed reason to doubt.
The Hawks' troubles have less to do with this Nets series, which now sits at a 2-1 Atlanta advantage, than their long-term prospects in this much-anticipated postseason. Perhaps, if worst-case scenarios collide, those concerns -- both present and future -- could become one in the same. But coach Mike Budenholzer's focus is not on allowing the Nets some glimmer of hope at Barclays Center on Saturday afternoon. It's on the fact that his team is playing like it doesn't belong in the title conversation.
There is an 82-game collection of data reliably stating that Atlanta is an elite NBA team, but three games into this long-awaited vindication and that team is curiously absent.
As other Eastern Conference teams begin to hit their stride and impose their will -- Cleveland, Chicago and Washington each took commanding (and historically insurmountable) 3-0 leads, with Chicago's only loss coming in buzzer-beating fashion -- Atlanta is struggling to rediscover its own identity. The Hawks currently find themselves in the most tightly contested first-round series the bracket has to offer.
The problems are almost exclusively pronounced on the offensive end. Shooting, passing, chemistry, efficiency, pace, space ... all of the factors that garnered the Hawks inescapable comparisons to that Western Conference machine in south Texas are nowhere to be found. When asked how far removed his team was from its regular-season dominance, point guard Jeff Teague didn't sugarcoat: "Very far."
From a macro apples-to-apples perspective, the Hawks' playoff numbers and their regular-season counterparts are at opposite ends of the spectrum. This team complemented a top-10 defense by posting a 56.3 true shooting percentage and scoring 108.9 points per 100 possessions. That was not the case in Brooklyn or Atlanta. In part due to the Nets' interior size and improved effort, Atlanta has produced like a lottery-bound offense. Its true shooting percentage in this series is sitting at 48.9 percent and it's scoring just 94.1 points per 100 possessions -- both rates would have ranked dead last among the NBA's 30 teams.
Something has gone wrong in this playoff series.
Game 3 was the ugliest snapshot. It wasn't, however, the first sign of trouble.
"Even the two games that we won, I feel like we didn't shoot the best as a team," center Al Horford said. "Our defense has been good. We need to figure out -- to find, I guess, ways offensively to get easier baskets and things like that. ... From the beginning of the game I felt like (the Nets) had more of an edge than we did. This was a big game for them and they came out and handled their business."
Added Kyle Korver, who walked out of Barclays with one of the worst shooting performances of his playoff career: "We don't feel good after a loss. We're fortunate that we won two at home and, you know, it's one game and we just keep on learning from it. It's the first of four. We're still ahead but we want to come back and play better."
Survive and advance only holds so much value in the NBA playoffs. Poor play catches up to teams. In terms of scoring margin, this has been an evenly matched series: The Hawks have scored a total of three more points. Outside of Toronto and Portland -- two 4-seeds being throttled by 5-seeds at the moment -- Atlanta has been the least dominant higher seed in the field. As confident as they are in their process and as efficienct as they've been in key late-game moments, the Hawks are just a few plays removed from mild desperation in this best-of-seven.
Game 1 was a four-point game in the final two minutes. Following that game, Nets coach Lionel Hollins said that he told his team in the locker room that if it didn't believe coming into the series, it should moving forward. That translated into a too-close-for-comfort Game 2. If Deron Williams's wide-open shot drops in the closing moments at Philips, that outcome might have been different.
Now Brooklyn has all the confidence it needs in trying to become the seventh 8-seed to win its first-round series. It's incumbent upon the Hawks to strip them of it.
That shouldn't be the focus, though. The substandard result in Game 3 -- a game that tied the seventh-lowest scoring output in the Budenholzer era -- was not about restoring faith or belief in the Nets players. After the Game 2 win, Hawks wing Kent Bazemore reiterated this point: "They really think they have a chance to get us. It's up to us to go out and take care of business." Hollins has insisted that's been the case all along.
Atlanta isn't in the business of rationing hope, though.
Instead, the Hawks need to treat Game 3 as an alarm clock. They aren't winning anything of substance this postseason playing at this level. Budenholzer seems fairly pleased with his team's defensive approach, but on Saturday there were some hints of frustration with how his pace-and-space attack was performing.
"We need to finish some shots, we need to make some shots or we'll end up with the efficiency where it was tonight," the reigning Coach of the Year said. "At times I think we move the ball the way we work on it. At halftime I think we had 13 assists on 15 field goals -- so at times I think the ball is moving and we're getting good looks but we just have to finish. ... We've probably got to make more than 15 field goals."
The Nets have effectively slowed the pace of this series down, molding it into the half-court game that suits them. The Hawks ran up just 90 possessions in Game 3 despite a back-and-fourth comeback attempt.
Point guards Jeff Teague and Dennis Schroder were erratic, their shooters went frigid, the floor spacing was jumbled and turnovers halted runs.
Brooklyn is showing positive signs, but entering the playoffs the Hawks unanimously took on Budenholzer's mentality of dealing with issues: Focus on the Hawks. Focus on what can be controlled. No matter Brooklyn's strengths or strategies, Atlanta is looking for self-improvement. For forward Paul Millsap, that starts with pace and shot selection.
"(Pace is) a main point of emphasis, I think, going into next game, not getting caught up into their pace," he said. "We played pretty slow tonight. That's not how we play. We play fast, we get up and down the court, we run a lot of pick and rolls. We got caught into their pace tonight, simple as that.
" ... There was a stretch when we were shooting straight jump shots. We shoot a lot of 3-point shots, but it's not the 3-point shots that we took tonight. Normally we drive hard, we either get fouled, kick it out to open shooters. This time I felt like we settled for a lot of jump shots."
The Hawks need to find themselves, and their trademark brand of basketball, in Brooklyn on Monday or risk allowing this series to hit the reset button.
