NBA Playoff Betting – (1) Hawks at (8) Nets (Game 6)

Atlanta Hawks (-4, 200.5 o/u) at Brooklyn Nets

Up 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, the Atlanta Hawks (63-24, 25-18 away) are hoping to oust the Brooklyn Nets (40-47, 21-22 home) tonight in New York City. Game 6 gets under way at 8:00 PM Eastern at the Barclays Center.

After dropping Games 3 and 4 in the Big Apple, the Hawks took Game 5 at home, 107-97, on Wednesday. Historically, 82-percent of Game 5 winners go on to win best-of-seven series, so the trends are certainly in Atlanta’s favor.

But don’t tell that to Nets head coach Lionel Hollins.

“Well, if we just played with stats we might as well mail it in and let Atlanta stay home,” Hollins said. “That’s why they play the games. Look at Chicago and Milwaukee [the Bucks trailed the Bulls 3-2 after being down 3-0 at the time of Hollins’ comments]. You’ve got to go play. The other team’s got to beat you four times. Yes, they have three, but there’s one more to be gotten, and we have to go out and compete and get that third win and then come back down here and be ready to get a fourth win – stats notwithstanding.”

Despite being down for most of the game, the Nets almost made another comeback in Game 5. Joe Johnson, who scored 18 points and added nine rebounds, missed a layup with just over a minute to play that would have tied the game. Brooklyn’s momentum dissipated with the errant shot and the Nets went on to lose by ten, failing to cover the nine-point spread in the process.

“I knew I was going to drive,” said Johnson. “I didn’t want to settle because we were only down two. I got to the basket and my momentum was going so fast that I just blew the layup. It was a blown play by me in a pivotal moment of the game. I just didn’t make the layup.”

If the Nets are going to keep their hopes alive tonight, it’s going to take a better defensive effort. Brooklyn let Atlanta shoot 49-percent from the floor (including hitting 9/19 attempts from beyond the arc).

Still, Hollins is taking positives away from the loss.

“In the playoffs, there are a lot of chances, a lot of opportunities,” said Hollins. “Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. You have to live with it and move on to the next game. But I definitely don’t look at it as a lost opportunity. We were down 33-16 in the first quarter. If I look at us battling back and having a chance to win as a lost opportunity, then there’s something wrong with me.”

Despite the Nets lackluster defense in the last two, the team was 39-48 o/u this season and held the high-scoring Hawks to double-digits in the first three games of the series. Look for Hollins to have his squad back to its defensive best tonight, making the under (200.5) the play.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (Flickr: Deron Williams) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)