Brooklyn Nets: Breakdown, predictions for 1st-round series with 76ers

Breaking down the coaches

Kenny Atkinson (Brooklyn) vs. Brett Brown (Philadelphia)

Kenny Atkinson won’t win NBA Coach of the Year this season, but he will be in the conversation after leading the Brooklyn Nets to a 14-win improvement in 2018-19 over 2017-18, going from 28-54 to 42-40.

That came after the Nets were just 20-62 in Atkinson’s first season at the helm in 2016-17.

Brett Brown of the Philadelphia 76ers knows the road Atkinson has traveled, and then some.

Brown is a rarity among NBA head coaches, a guy who was brought in to oversee a massive rebuilding project and has been kept on to actually reap some of the rewards.

This is Brown’s sixth season with the 76ers, who have gone 103-61 over the last two seasons after they were just 75-253 in Brown’s first four years in Philadelphia.

For some perspective, Brown is the first coach in NBA history with multiple 60-loss and 50-win seasons with the same team.

Brown took the bullets during The Process initiated by former general manager Sam Hinkie and continued under successors Brian Colangelo and Elton Brand.

But there have been rumblings that Brown could be in trouble if the Sixers exit the playoffs early this year.

Brooklyn’s Kenny Atkinson has no such worries after he was rewarded with a contract extension and his plan entering the playoffs is to stick to a 10-man rotation, flying in the face of conventional NBA wisdom that teams narrow the rotation to eight or maybe nine come playoff time.

One thing is sure in this series: There will be shadows of San Antonio Spurs coaching icon Gregg Popovich all over it.

Brown was an assistant under Popovich for nine years before getting the Philadelphia job. Atkinson spent three years under another Pop disciple, Mike Budenholzer, with the Atlanta Hawks before he was hired by the Nets.

Brown did a tremendous job leading the 76ers out of their self-imposed exile, but there are questions about his offensive system and his ability to take Philadelphia to the next level.

Atkinson has received high praise from his peers for the job he’s done in reviving a Nets team that embarked on a rebuild without the benefit of the lottery picks that dot the 76ers’ roster.

If Atkinson has made significant progress in one area this season, it is that he has shown much more flexibility and creativity.

That was on display when the Nets came back from 25-point down at the beginning of the fourth quarter to beat the Sacramento Kings last month.

Out of desperation, Atkinson went with a unit on the floor that included D’Angelo Russell and all four players who made starts this season at power forward — Jared Dudley, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Rodions Kurucs and Treveon Graham.

Russell went supernova, scoring 27 points in the fourth quarter, and the Nets won it on Hollis-Jefferson’s driving score in the closing seconds.

Atkinson gets credit for this win because he fought the instinct to go back to his regulars when the game got closer. Instead, he stayed with the unconventional quintet that brought Brooklyn back.

He also helped the Nets’ defensive woes by going with a zone look regularly. The Nets finished the season in the top half of the NBA in defensive rating at 108.9, ranking 15th, and after the All-Star break, Brooklyn was fourth in the NBA in that category at 106.8.

ADVANTAGE: Nets (slight)