NEW YORK _ Teams in playoff position cannot afford to waste home games against the NBA's lesser teams, especially when the immediate schedule only grows more challenging from here.
The surging Nets spotted Atlanta a monstrous first quarter Wednesday night, but Brooklyn overcame a 19-point deficit to improve to 13-4 since Dec. 7 with a 116-100 comeback victory over the Hawks at Barclays Center.
D'Angelo Russell scored a team-high 23 points and Joe Harris chipped in 16 as the Nets (21-22) nudged percentage points ahead of Miami for the sixth playoff position in the Eastern Conference. DeMarre Carroll added 17 points and Spencer Dinwiddie netted 16. Their next three opponents _ Toronto on the road, Boston at home and at Houston _ boasted a combined .645 winning percentage this season through Tuesday.
Atlanta, which has dropped five of its last six to fall to 12-29, was paced by 30 points and 14 rebounds from John Collins and 17 points from rookie Trae Young. Former Nets guard Jeremy Lin scored 16 points on 5-for-18 shooting.
The Nets had scored a season-best 144 points the previous time Atlanta was in town on Dec. 16. That was the fifth victory of the seven-game winning streak that catapulted the Nets back into playoff contention.
"I think being resilient and getting through that tough stretch of games we had, the eight losses in a row, the ability to get up off the floor when you're kind of knocked down, that's kind of been the story of this team," Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said before the game. "Whether it's that kind of stretch there, or we have a bad loss, this team always bounces back.
"We're a resilient team, a team that gets off the mat when something bad happens."
The undermanned Nets had squandered a chance to reach .500 with Monday's rough road loss to the Celtics, but Harris and Carroll returned to the lineup after missing the Boston game with minor injuries.
Still, the Hawks erupted for 38 points in the first quarter, including 14 of 16 from the free-throw line. They led by as many as 19 early in the second, before Russell and Dinwiddie fueled an 11-0 surge to help the Nets slash that to 57-51 by halftime.
Harris, who came in ranked second in the NBA in 3-point percentage, buried three shots from long range in the first three minutes of the third quarter, for a 66-63 Brooklyn turnaround advantage. Ed Davis' traditional three-point play in the closing seconds of the period boosted the Nets' cushion to six entering the final quarter.
The Nets opened the fourth on a 14-3 run, featuring five points from Carroll, to cruise to their 13th win in 17 games since their record bottomed out at 8-18 with an eight-game losing skid through Dec. 5.
"I think we kept doing and trusted what we've been doing here for two and a half years. The players luckily had the confidence to stay on track with what we were doing. And I think that gets you through tough times," Atkinson said. "Believe me, during an eight-game losing streak, you think about a lot of things. You think about changing lineups, you think about changing defenses, you think about changing your offense. It's like a real kind of apocalypse when you're losing like that. ... Whether it was during a winning streak or losing streak, we've conducted business as usual and stuck with our beliefs and our culture."
