Sports

Nets’ roaring playoff return was made even sweeter with silence

PHILADELPHIA — All across the afternoon, the Nets basked in one of the great soundtracks of sports: an angry Philly audience spewing bile, slandering their own, showering boos upon every missed 3, every blown defensive assignment, every passive possession.

By day’s end, they were able to enjoy the second-best sound:

Silence.

Total, all-consuming, deafening silence. By the time the final buzzer groaned, the Nets had cleared Wells Fargo Center of all but a meek, muttering few. The final score was 111-102, and that doesn’t come close to representing just how thorough a beating this was. Most of the fourth quarter was a double-digit walk.

Have you missed the playoffs much, Brooklyn?

Because this was some return.

“We weren’t rattled,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said after winning his first playoff game as a head coach. “You’re afraid with this crowd and this team they can knock you out of the box quick. We took a couple of shots from them and kept our composure.”





D’Angelo Russell was sensational — 26 points and four assists worth of sensational — but this was as complete a team effort as you could ask for. The Nets were relaxed, they were delightfully unburdened by any and all expectation. They shared the ball, got after the Sixers and sent the locals into an angry, ugly frenzy.

All in all, not a bad day at the office.

“We did a good job closing it out,” Atkinson said.

“We were exposed,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said, “in a lot of areas.”

There is, of course, a certain beauty when a team plays with house money, especially when they happen to be matched with a team that seemingly has everything to lose. The Nets came out loose, easy, breezy. The Sixers were stiff and tentative. It showed.





The Nets were up nine after the first quarter. The lead was 37-23 when Caris LeVert made a 26-foot 3 with 10:13 left in the half and the Sixers called for time. It had taken less than 14 minutes for the Sixers to get booed off the floor at Wells Fargo Center. It was an impressive display of restraint.

But this was exactly what the Nets had hoped for. Atkinson admitted before the game that for all the chatter surrounding Joel Embiid and his “doubtful” status, he fully expected to see No. 21 when the teams gathered for the opening tip.

“You prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” he said, smiling. “We’re preparing that he’ll play. You have to go with your gut.”





He played. Not only that, he started the game with an urgency that belied the rest of his teammates, demanding the ball, drawing a couple of early fouls on Nets center Jarrett Allen. But even as he was scoring early, he didn’t look right: his energy could camouflage his tentativeness only so long.

Then, there was the camera shot that caught Embiid and backup center Amir Johnson checking a cell phone. On the bench. In a playoff game.

If the fans had seen that…

“Completely unacceptable,” Brown said.

The Nets were unfazed and unaffected. And after that initial burst, they pounced.

“We want to try and enjoy it,” Atkinson said. “Nervous excitement. Playing in Philly, all the history here, not just basketball history but sports history. This is a special place to start it.”





He smiled.

“We’re going into it a little naive but excited,” he said.

The crowd was at a fever pitch at game’s start. Allen Iverson joined Aaron McKie, his old teammate from the 2001 NBA Finalists, and Iverson was wearing an old-school No. 6 Julius Erving jersey. The place flipped over that. But you could sense, even then, that there was a nervous buzz abounding, too.

The Nets fed that. LeVert was terrific off the bench, with 16 first-half points. So was Spencer Dinwiddie, who added 11. Most impressive, the Nets never quaked at the enormity of the moment. It was only a few months ago that no Nets lead ever seemed safe. That team was nowhere to be found Saturday.

“Early in the season when we were struggling in games like that we’d get a lead, take bad turnovers, take bad shots,” Atkinson said. “Our collective maturity has improved so much.”

Everything else, too. The Nets stole the afternoon from the Sixers, stole home-court advantage, invited a hailstorm of fury. What a beautiful sound.





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