The good, the bad, the ugly: Hawks searching for consistency with injuries to key players
Three games into the new NBA season and the Hawks already have to figure out how to operate when not at full strength.
In back-to-back games, injuries have hampered the Hawks’ ability to test the lineups and rotations they think can lead to success.
On Saturday, the Hawks faced the reigning NBA champion Thunder without Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and Kristaps Porzingis. Without them, the Hawks had very little room for error and the mistakes piled up in the second half.
Here is the good, the bad and the ugly in the Hawks’ 117-100 loss to the Thunder on Saturday at State Farm Arena.
The good: Without Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and Kristaps Porzingis, the Hawks continued to get some crucial development minutes for their young players early in the season.
Hawks rookie center Asa Newell built on his performance from Friday night in Orlando. He connected on each of his first three 3-point attempts on Saturday, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds in 25 minutes.
“I think he’s worked at that, and I think guys find that corner 3, for a player that coming out of college hasn’t taken a lot of 3s, that’s a good place to begin to build your confidence,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “And you can see that happening. I think, as much as anything, too, his instincts for the ball are really good.”
Hawks forward Mouhamed Gueye started the game in place of Johnson, putting together another solid all-around performance. Gueye scored 11 points, had six rebounds, two assists and two blocks.
“Those are the silver linings when you’re missing guys,” Snyder said. “It’s a tough hill to climb, but again, having younger players have a chance to develop in competitive situations against the world champs, you can take from that.”
The bad: Hawks wing Luke Kennard hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts. The 29-year-old, though, has been adjusting to the expanded role that the team has asked of him.
With the team deploying a ballhandler by committee to backup point guard minutes, Kennard has ended up passing up shots to find better looks for his new teammates.
Through the first three games, Kennard has shot 22% from 3 on three attempts per game.
But the Hawks have confidence that Kennard will find more opportunities as their team evolves.
“As our team evolves, I think we saw more of it tonight; guys driving the ball, having their eyes out,” Snyder said. “There was a lot of connectivity with those things. I think that’s where a lot of his shots are going to come. And he’s actually one of the best people on our team in doing that, you know, just attacking close outs.”
The ugly: So far this season, the Hawks have been unlucky with finding consistent minutes to build chemistry with their top rotational players.
They’ve rolled with three different starting lineups in the first three games, slowing the chance for the top eight players to build in-game chemistry.
“You gotta be consistently in the lineups,” Young said. “We gotta consistently be there for each other. It’s hard to have consistency when it’s multiple different lineups and different guys playing, it’s only the third game. So even that we’ve had multiple different lineups and think every game. So, it’s hard to find consistency when you don’t have that.”
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