The Atlanta Hawks and Brooklyn Nets will meet on ESPN this Wednesday evening in a battle of two talented 4-3 teams. Brooklyn last played Sunday in a 26-point win over the Pistons while the Hawks ended their losing streak with a 118-111 win over the 5-1 Wizards on Monday.
What are the NBA odds for tonight? Let’s check ’em out!
Atlanta Hawks vs. Brooklyn Nets
Wednesday, November 3, 2021 – 07:30 PM EDT at Barclays Center
Brooklyn is a 5-point favorite at BMR’s top-rated sportsbooks with both teams 3-4 ATS this season. The Hawks need to improve on their NBA-worst 0-4 ATS record on the road. The Nets won two of the three matchups with Atlanta a year ago, including two of the team’s highest-scoring games of the season, but none of those matchups took place after January. Can the playoff-tested Hawks upset the Nets on the road?
Atlanta Through Seven Games
The Hawks are 4-3 to start the season for the second year in a row, but expectations are higher this time after the team reached the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago behind the play of Trae Young. The young guard is producing numbers very similar to last year, but a couple of low-scoring losses to close October has him down to 22.9 points per game. But Young did bounce back with a 26-point effort in a win over Washington on Monday.
Statistically, Atlanta is in the ballpark of where it was a season ago. The Hawks rank No. 9 in Offensive Rating and No. 17 in Defensive Rating. One area where Young is noticeably down is his three-point shooting percentage (27.0%). He has yet to be an efficient shooter from deep, but he usually makes around 34%. The Hawks take the second-lowest percentage of threes in the league this year (32.2%) ahead of only Chicago, so the "three-ball" has not been much of a weapon for Young and the Hawks.
The strange part about that is the lack of shots for Bogdan Bogdanovic. He is playing his normal number of minutes but is currently averaging a career-low 9.6 field goal attempts per game, including just 4.4 threes per game. Last season he averaged 7.6 threes per game. He is shooting 45.2% from three this season so it’s not like his shot has been off.
Bogdanovic did make a season-high four threes in Monday’s win, but Cam Reddish has taken over as the team’s second-leading scorer (16.0 points per game) off the bench. Atlanta will need to play better offense in this matchup. The Nets are holding teams to 42% from the field, tied for the third-best mark on defense this season.
Brooklyn: The Big Two
Brooklyn’s plan for an offensive juggernaut featuring its big three is not coming to fruition with Kyrie Irving’s continued absence due to his COVID vaccination stance. The Nets must make do with Kevin Durant and James Harden, which is not a bad spot to be in for any team.
However, the Nets rank 22nd in Offensive Rating and are only elevated to 17th in Net Rating (-0.4) thanks to a defense that ranks ninth in Defensive Rating. Just last season the Nets were the No. 1 offense and No. 23 defense, so this is a change for Steve Nash’s team.
A big part of the problem is that Harden’s offensive game has been off. He is currently shooting a career-worst 39.8% from the field, including the lowest 2P% of his career (41.3%). He is not the triple-double threat he was for Brooklyn a year ago and his 18.6 points per game is his lowest average since he was a bench player in Oklahoma City.
Many believe the officiating differences this year are hurting Harden more than any player where he cannot get to the line after drawing minimal contact. In six of the seven games this season, Harden has attempted fewer than five three throws. Since leaving Oklahoma City in 2012, Harden has only had one other streak longer than two games where he did not attempt at least five free throws in games.
It was only in that win over Indiana last Friday where Harden was 16-of-19 from the free-throw line on his way to 29 points, his only game with more than 20 this season. It will be very interesting to see how this progresses throughout the season.
The Nets could use the scoring help. While Durant has been playing great, LaMarcus Aldridge is the third-leading scorer off the bench at 12.7 points per game. Joe Harris is only shooting 36% from three after finishing over 41.5% in each of the last four seasons.
Prediction
Brooklyn has played the second-toughest strength of schedule according to Basketball Reference. Starting the season with road games in Milwaukee (banner night) and Philadelphia was not easy, and the Nets are closing out this six-game homestand against an Atlanta team as good as anyone not named Miami that the Nets have played this year.
FiveThirtyEight gives Brooklyn a 62% win probability in this matchup, but it sees the spread as more Nets -3 rather than Nets -5. I think this can be an entertaining game and I am going to trust Atlanta to keep it close enough to get a cover for your NBA picks this Wednesday.
NBA Pick: Hawks +5 (-110) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
