First, let’s get one matter out of the way. If you’re the Atlanta Hawks and you really want a 2015 lottery pick, you are going to have to trade up for one.

That’s not to say tonight’s hosts, the Brooklyn Nets (7:30 PM Eastern, SportSouth, YES Network), have been world-beaters, at least not up until this week. The Nyets (8-9) crawled into December with a losing record and zero victories over teams with a winning record. Even after two crucial wins on back-to-back nights this week, Brooklyn sits in the precarious 8^th-seed position in the Eastern Conference, two games ahead of Indiana with 65 games left to play. Conceivably, one false move, and a fortuitous ping pong ball bounce or two, could have Danny Ferry donning his Viola Davis wig and instructing a summertime class on How To Get Away With Mudiay.

Now, here’s the wet blanket. I’m going to ask you to take a quick, sobering gander at seeds 9 through 14 in the East. Go ahead, look at it. It’s fugly, ain’t it? Sure, it’s only December, we haven’t even had our first Gridlockalypse yet. True, we’re not even a quarter of the way into the season. Yet who, pray tell, is going to catch fire over the next four months and nip at the heels of the Nets, or anybody else? Whatever’s left of the Pacers? The nice-try Magic? The fire-sale Celtics? Melo and the Meloettes? The buzzkill Hornets? Smoove? None of those teams have that pull-it-together mojo that the Nets caught once January rolled around last season, and none are a blockbuster trade away from significantly enhancing their playoff prospects.

The line of postseason demarcation is set in the East, and Brooklyn’s now on the good side of it -- calling it now -- to stay. That doesn’t mean, though, the Hawks can’t help make things a little interesting.

While Netswatch is on life support, Netswap is still very much on. Atlanta can still do its part to keep the Nets on edge all season long, including winning two matchups during the final two weeks of the season. At the risk of getting ahead of ourselves, the Hawks (11-6, winners of six of their last seven) might even get a chance at homecourt advantage against these guys in a playoff series. And no matter how that might turn out, the Hawks would win in May, once they get a chance to climb the draft ladder and swap rungs with Billy King. Every win over Brooklyn helps not only improve the likelihood a pick swap occurs for Atlanta, but also expands the distance between these teams when the time comes to trade places.

“I’m off this s***!!” No, Joe Johnson wasn’t celebrating giving up purple drank when he typed what is, still, the last message on his Twitter page a few weeks ago. The man known coincidentally as Iso-Joe was frustrated at what he perceived as “selfish” play on the part of his teammates… and this was back when Brooklyn was 4-2. Along the way to dropping seven of their next nine games, Nets players and their new coach, the acerbic Lionel Hollins, were cranking out more shots-fired than in the final season of The Sopranos, offering brutally honest assessments of one another both inside and outside the locker room.

Brook Lopez? No one cares about your obligatory 20 points-a-game. Toughen up! Go get us a defensive rebound, guard your man, and try passing the ball every once in awhile -- you might like it. Andrei Kirilenko? Thanks for being a good soldier and all, but we’ve got no role for you on this roster. Go spend time with your model wife or something. Bojan Bogdanovic? Shooting it from Flatbush won’t improve your chances of making a shot, rook. Calling you a stretch four is, indeed, a stretch. Put the ball on the floor and play in-the-paint. Hey, Joe! Nice game, but you have a nice salary, too. Can you try being a little more consistent? Team USA you say, Mason Plumlee? That’s real nice. Meet Team Jamaica, because Jerome Jordan’s outplaying you and taking your minutes away.

In the aftermath of Joe’s outbursts, Kevin Garnett noted that NBA players don’t last long “just whispering or being a nice guy or the guy the ladies like. You’ve got to be an ***hole,” advice the Honey Nut Cheerios-munching power forward has clearly taken to heart. But that ethos applies to Hollins, too, and all the pressure and heat the new coach is applying may be starting to make diamonds out of players that were quite satisfied with being coal.

KG has been carrying most of the defensive rebounding weight Hollins has demanded out of Lopez all season, but took himself out of Wednesday’s game, the second night of a back-to-back against Tim Duncan and the Spurs. Who was going to step up against the defending champs? The surprising answer came from not just one, but two big men. Lopez’ season-high 13 defensive rebounds equaled his tally from the prior three games, plus he helped slow Duncan into a 5-for-18 shooting night (the sullen superstar’s 17-rebound production notwithstanding). Lopez got help from third-year forward Mirza Teletovic. The Man for Mostar played like a Monstar on Wednesday, matching B-Lo’s 15 rebounds and ringing up 26 points, including 5-for-7 shooting from three-point range.

They needed all of that production plus a steady passing performance from Deron Williams (17 points, 9 assists, 2 TOs) to outduel the Spurs in overtime. Throughout the game, fans of the Nets (45.5% assisted 2FGs, 4^th-lowest in NBA) were downright shocked to witness their team matching the Spurs with a functional motion offense featuring players notoriously accustomed to pounding the basketball through the herringbone floor. It’s a sign that Hollins’ messages are beginning to sink in. D-Will has fully embraced Hollins’ edicts and is enjoying a bit of a rebound (17.9 PPG, 6.5 APG, 40.0 3FG%, 89.2 FT%) after a disappointing 2013-14 season (14.3 PPG, 6.1 APG, 36.6 3FG%, 80.1 FT%).

Even with Garnett back on the floor, there is absolutely no reason for Brooklyn to make adjustments from Wednesday’s victory over San Antonio (64.6% assisted field goals, 3^rd in NBA) for a Hawks team (66.3% assisted field goals, 1^st in NBA) that professes to think of itself as Spurs-Lite. Of course, consistency is not exactly Brooklyn’s forte. A Nets win tonight will mark the first time the club has won three in a row this season.

DeMarre Carroll will have his hands full defending Joe, who's eager to have a good night against any winning team, much less his old one. In the last two games versus the Spurs and the last game against the Bulls, all in the past two weeks, Johnson shot a combined 10-for-39 (2-for-11 3FGs), managed a combined two free throws, and averaged 7.7 PPG and 2.7 APG. Joe Cool heated up against the Sixers and Knicks, averaging 21.5 PPG and 5.0 APG while shooting 15-for-26 (4-for-8 3FGs).

The Nets have struggled to establish a deep rotation, as reserve guards Jarrett Jack and Alan Anderson have struggled on both ends of the floor, while Plumlee (13.1 minutes/game, down from 18.2 his rookie season; 42.5 FG%, 43.9 FT%) and Kirilenko have yet to earn the trust of Hollins. The backups (Jack, Anderson, Plumlee, and Jordan) contributed just 14 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, one steal and no blocks during the 95-93 win over San Antonio, and Nets reserves put up just 16 of Brooklyn’s 98 points the night before at New York.

Depth is an area the Hawks can exploit, by wearing down Brooklyn’s starters with a high pace and getting one or more of their starters in foul/turnover trouble. Dennis Schröder (61.7 2FG%) has established a career-high in points scored (15 versus Boston, 16 at Miami) two nights in a row. Atlanta’s reserves have put up at least 35 points in each of the past three games.

The Hawks want to press the action throughout and earn trips to the free throw line, where they’ve shot above 80 percent in each of their last four games. Brooklyn is 1-7 when their opponents gained 22 or more free throw attempts.

With Paul Millsap likely occupied by Garnett for much of the game (Wear a cup, Paul. And titanium forearm sleeves, too), Al Horford will want to get in on the action by getting in the post on Lopez and drawing foul shots. Horford’s peripheral offensive approach to this point has produced just 0.9 FT attempts per game, well below the 2.4 shots from his last All-Star season in 2011. He has been more accurate in his trips, shooting a career-high 80.0 FT% despite the low volume. Once a fairly poor free-throw shooting team, Atlanta’s 79.6 team FT% has them currently ranked 4^th in the NBA. And they’re 8-1 on the season when their free throw-to-field goal attempt ratio exceeds 22.5%.

When their opponents are shooting threes from the corners, Brooklyn’s defense has been stout on the left side (22.0 left-corner opponent 3FG%, lowest in NBA) but sagging on the right (48.0 right-corner opponent 3FG%, 5^th-highest in NBA). Kyle Korver (66.7 3FG% on right-corner threes) and the struggling Carroll (4-for-17 FGs in the last two games, but 41.7 right-corner 3FG% on the season) could utilize screens from the bigs to make the right corner the rough equivalent of a layup line, with an added effect of finding bigs and cutters inside the paint, once the action draws the Nets’ bigs out.

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3