Head coach Kenny Atkinson’s refusal to part with his beliefs left the Brooklyn Nets blowing a 23-point lead. In a season of progress, fans still care about winning.
We all know comebacks happen. Nets’ fans have seen it. Only usually, Brooklyn is making the comeback putting the other team in a position to sit back and say “wait, did that really happen?” This time it was the Brooklyn Nets’ players and fans who had to keep saying “no, this can’t be happening” or “where’s D’Lo for the last 20 minutes?”
Atkinson struck again, removing a hot D’Angelo Russell and keeping him on the bench for another extended period of time. This allowed the Hornets to slowly but surely creep back into the game. Usually I’d be behind Atkinson and I still am due to the fact that he coaches my team. And, like anything else, if you’re a fan of something or happen to live somewhere you always want your leader to succeed. We may not agree with everything they do or say, but we still want the best possible outcome. Or at least you should.
Nets’ fans understand that this is a rebuilding year. They understand that there’s the process and there’s progress. With no shiny pick at the end of this season however, they are still hungry for wins. No matter how big or how small.
By the halfway point of Wednesday’s game many Nets fans thought they had this in the bag. They did, until Atkinson decided that his rotations and minutes played were more important than another win. Now I’m not a professional coach nor do I claim that I can do a better job at this than he does, but sometimes common sense outweighs knowledge. Atkinson kept his second unit in for too long. Check. Instead of slowing the game down and driving more, players like Spencer Dinwiddie decided to shoot and keep shooting.
Dwight Howard was killing them all game? No problem, let’s keep Quincy Acy on him. As the Hornets were creeping closer and closer, you could hear Nets fans screaming across the world to put Jahlil Okafor in. Heck, they would had even settled for Timofey Mozgov to try and stop him. Their voices went unheard.
Next: Who's the face of "Trust the Progress?"
At the end of the day though, this is still a ”progress” year. With their 23 wins they have already shown us that they are progressing.
However, if Atkinson strikes again we could be waiting for win number 24 until next season.
Go with your gut, coach.