Hawks humbled

NEW YORK — Brooklyn Nets coach Lionel Hollins perused the final box score and wondered how his team could win while shooting 39 percent. Then he realized that his defense spent most of Game 3 clamping down on the Atlanta Hawks, especially their 3-point shooters.

The Nets held the Hawks to 36 percent shooting, including 6 of 30 from 3-point range, and ripped off 18 straight points late in the third quarter and early in the fourth for a 91-83 victory in their first-round series on Saturday.

Center Brook Lopez led the Nets with 22 points and rookie forward Bojan Bogdanovic added 19. Forward Thaddeus Young bounced back from two subpar games in Atlanta and contributed 18 points, with six to start the decisive run.

The Nets trailed for a minute early in the first quarter and then for 2:03 late in the third.

After their early deficit, the Nets forced the Hawks to miss seven straight shots and go 6 of 22 while Brooklyn took a 31-16 lead through 12 minutes. After the second deficit, the Nets held the Hawks without a basket for 8:25, forcing them to miss 13 straight shots and turning a 62-58 deficit into a 76-62 lead with 8:53 remaining.

“When you look at it, it’s playoff basketball. We shot 39 percent and they shot 36 percent from the field,” Hollins said. “I look at the stats and I was like, ‘How did we win?’ They had 25 fast-break points; they had 50 points in the paint.

“I thought our defense, especially down the stretch, was outstanding. When you make hustle plays and you make teams miss on breaks and you get the ball to come back, that’s huge — as tight as the games are.”

It was the first postseason win for the Nets in a game in which both teams shot under 40 percent since Game 4 of the 2003 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. They also won despite point guard Deron Williams being limited to three points on 1-of-8 shooting and sitting out the final 16 minutes, mostly because of a sore back.

“It’s definitely sore, but I’m just happy we won,” Williams said. “That’s all that matters.”

Brooklyn’s clinching run started after two free throws by forward Pero Antic gave Atlanta a 62-58 lead with 2:58 left in the third. On three of the next five possessions, Young hit a pair of 4-foot jumpers and a 7-foot turnaround jumper and the Nets never trailed again.

Forward Joe Johnson sent the Nets into the fourth with a 67-62 lead when he hit a 3-pointer with 40 seconds left. Lopez scored six straight points for Brooklyn early in the fourth.

That run ensured that Monday will not be an elimination game for the Nets, who still trail 2-1 in the best-of-seven series. Sparking the run also proved to be redemption for Young, who apologized to his teammates after Game 2.

“I definitely felt after Game 2 I could have definitely played better,” Young said. “Players have games like that in the playoffs. It’s about if they can bounce back and come back and get a win. My focus since Game 2 was getting back into the game and getting into the series.”

While the Nets got back in the series, the Hawks were unable to beat Brooklyn for the seventh time this season. The Hawks had 50 points in the paint but missed 13 layups, were 7 of 33 outside the paint and had the lowest shooting percentage of any Brooklyn opponent since Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference semifinals, when the Cleveland Cavaliers shot 33.3 percent.

“I think they’re contesting shots well and they’re making a lot of looks difficult,” said Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer, whose team had made 42 percent (75 of 176) of its 3-pointers in the previous six meetings with the Nets. “Occasionally we got some good looks, and we’re not getting those to go down, but I think their contest and their effort to get to our shooters and just make our looks more difficult. At the end of the day, that’s the most basic simple thing to defense.”

Forward DeMarre Carroll led Atlanta with 22 points while fellow forward Paul Millsap added 18. They were a combined 5 of 9 from 3-point range while the rest of the team was 1 of 21.

That included the trio of center Al Horford and guards Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver, who were held to a combined 21 points, shot 8 of 33 and missed all nine of their 3-point attempts.

“We had a hard time scoring tonight,” Korver said. “You have to give them credit for their defense and their role in that, but we were just having a hard time getting good shots. We took a lot of tougher shots tonight and we didn’t hit a good percentage.”

NOTES: The Hawks entered with their ninth 2-0 series lead and first since the 2010 first round against Milwaukee in a series that lasted seven games. … F Al Horford appeared in his 49th playoff game, tying C Kevin Willis for fifth in Hawks history. … Brooklyn played its 10th postseason game at Barclays Center. F Joe Johnson and G Deron Williams are the only players to appear in each game. … In the first two games, the Nets committed 20 of their 33 turnovers in the first half.