ATLANTA – One night after putting a scare into the Orlando Magic in their building, the Nets let the Atlanta Hawks feel right at home in their house – for a little more of a half.

Then the Nets had the Hawks sweating and their fans booing when they ran 20 points off of a 30-point second-half lead.

But the Nets just didn’t have enough time, couldn’t make enough shots and couldn’t get enough stops to really spoil the night for the Hawks and the announced crowd of 17,093.

The final score, 98-87, was much more respectable than it appeared it was going to be, and the comeback allowed the Nets to escape coach Avery Johnson’s wrath – at least publicly.

Johnson wasn’t happy, and he let the players know it. He let the media know it, too, but it probably would have been much worse if the Nets hadn’t made that furious comeback led by Anthony Morrow, who finished with 25 points.

“They never quit, boy,” Johnson said. “If you watched the Nets and our effort in the second half, it’s something to behold. We battled. To come way back like we did on the road. …

“There are no moral victories but I like what I saw in the second half. Now I explained to our team what we did in the first half was unacceptable in every facet of basketball 101.”

For the first 31 minutes, the Nets showed none of the fight they did against the Magic, none of the heart.

Yes, the Hawks have been struggling lately and struggling at home, where they lost six of their previous nine. They probably wanted to come out aggressively and jump all over the Nets and take them out of the game right away. Atlanta definitely did that.

But the start of this game for the Nets was a typical end-of-a-road-trip, can’t-wait-to-get-home performance.

It went something like this: the Nets scored the first basket of the game and then weren’t heard from for about the next six minutes. The score went from 19-2 to 27-9 to 46-21 to 55-27 to 65-35 to 74-44 with about five minutes left in the third quarter.

There was no reason to keep flipping back and forth between YES and the NCAA Tournament games. This one was over, long over, long ago.

But the Nets showed pride, and heart and fight, showed all the things Johnson wanted to see from that at the beginning of the game.

Suddenly, 74-44 became 82-61 after three, and then 88-78 with 5:02 left in the game. Suddenly Nets fans were flipping back and forth. But the Nets couldn't finish it off.

“We understand what we’re fighting against, but we don’t make any excuses,” Johnson said. “That’s why you saw our team put on our hard hats in the second half, play much better defense, Nets defense, not what we saw in the first half.”

In the end, though, it’s still a loss, one more and the Nets will have 50. But as it has been said so many times in this space, it’s not about this season. It’s about the future and the Nets believe they’re in much better shape going forward because they acquired Deron Williams.

The Nets should be in better shape in a few days because Williams said before this game that he’s going to return from the wrist injury that has kept him out of the past five games.

Williams is expected to play against the Knicks on Wednesday, in the nationally televised ESPN game, in a meaningful game for the Nets and probably a must-win for the Knicks.

Who knows how much more Williams will play after that game, if at all. The wrist is an ongoing issue that needs at least four weeks of rest. The Nets are on the verge of playoff elimination – a mere formality – so it doesn’t make sense to play Williams much more, if at all.

But the Nets have 10 games left in this season and they keep saying they want to keep getting better and end on a good note. They had a good run in this game, but for the most part this was a no-show performance.

The Nets can’t have any more of those. They shouldn’t have any more of those.

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Follow me on Twitter: @Al_Iannazzone

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Al Iannazzone covers the Nets for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)