We’ll get our first look at top draft pick Zaccharie Risacher’s regular season on Wednesday night when the Atlanta Hawks host the Brooklyn Nets for an Eastern Conference showdown.

Unfortunately for Brooklyn, it could be difficult to get a win on the road, as that will be the case without Day’Ron Sharpe (hamstring), Trendon Watford (hamstring) and Bojan Bogdanovic (foot).

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Here’s our prediction and picks for Wednesday night’s regular season opener for the Nets and Hawks.

Nets vs. Hawks Odds

Nets vs. Hawks example

Trae Young and Dejounte Murray’s defensive experiment didn’t work as planned. However, Atlanta was able to move on from Murray, getting draft capital and a few key rotation pieces back in the trade with the Pelicans.

On paper, it made sense to add a talented, interchangeable perimeter defender to a team that was desperate to hide Young on the defensive end of the floor, but perhaps the Hawks should just lean into that and play at a breakneck pace this season. season.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn is in the middle of a rebuild after trading Mikal Bridges for a truckload of top-shelf Brink’s.

It forces the Nets to endure a few inevitably horrific seasons hoping they can get lucky in the upcoming drafts and prepare for the future. There won’t be much winning in Brooklyn this season.

The spread for Wednesday night’s opener for both teams is 7.5 points in Atlanta’s favor. What can we expect from these teams in their first regular season game?

First off, there’s a lot to like about this Hawks team, especially their bench, which features one of the best sixth men in Bogdan Bogdanovic, the 2024 No. 1 pick in Risacher, a seasoned offensive veteran in Larry Nance Jr. and a talented two inside force in Onyeka Okongwu.

Atlanta should be one of the fastest teams in the NBA this season. The Hawks ranked sixth last year but should be even faster this season in an effort to mitigate their obvious weaknesses on the defensive end of the court.

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Nets vs Hawks choice

Brooklyn simply doesn’t have enough firepower to keep this one within striking distance.

Furthermore, the Nets were an extremely poor 3-13-2 against the spread as underdogs of 7.5 points or higher in 2023-2024.

Usually we don’t like to score that many points against a team we’re somewhat unsure of going into the season, but there’s a clear talent disparity and contrast in styles that favors Atlanta in this season.

Choice: Hawks -7.5 (-110, Caesars)

Why trust New York Post betting

Andrew Norton has handicapped in the NBA, WNBA, NFL, college basketball and football, UFC and golf. During the 2022-2023 NBA season, he delivered an eye-popping 14.1% ROI, cashed in on 60% of his NBA spread picks and led Tallysight in its SportsIQ metric.