Hawks leaning on each other as they navigate Trae Young’s absence

The Hawks had a day of practice after struggling to generate offense against the Cavaliers on Sunday. That practice paid off Tuesday night when they downed the Magic 127-112 at State Farm Arena.

In three games without Trae Young, the Hawks have beaten a shorthanded Pacers team, lost to a nearly full-strength Cavaliers team, then picked apart a Magic team still searching for an offensive identity with a new face in their rotation.

The Cavaliers played as the only opponent in the past three games with more wins than losses.

Over the past three games, the Hawks have posted a defensive rating of 109.4, the eighth-best in the NBA.

In those three games, the Hawks have started Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and Kristaps Porzingis. Young’s absence also has opened minutes for players such as Mouhamed Gueye, Vit Krejci and Keaton Wallace.

On Tuesday, the Hawks held the Magic to 43.3% overall shooting, all while limiting Magic forwards Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner to 12-of-31 overall shooting.

“We’ve been working defensively for a while,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “It’s an everyday thing. It’s something you have to do as a team. Obviously, getting to Dyson at tonight was unique. We don’t want to ever take those for granted.

“But there’s some individual matchups tonight and some coverages that I thought we did a pretty good job executing. When we didn’t, they took advantage of it. I think you saw a stretch like that as well. But by and large, when our defense is solid, it gives us a chance to run and that’s when, even if we’re not running for layups or open shots, we’re just better offensively.”

The Hawks have seen a slight uptick in their offensive rating and they’ve averaged a little under eight more points per game over the past three games. They’ve had the second-best field-goal percentage.

To get there, the Hawks have had to rely on several facilitators to move the ball. They’ve leaned on Alexander-Walker, Daniels, Johnson, Kennard, Krejci and more to fill the gap left with Young’s absence.

Who has the ball in their hands more will vary from game to game. But the Hawks did play through their bigs Tuesday night.

“I think when you play a team that has Jalen Suggs on it, the way that he presses the ball, to have multiple handlers makes sense,” Snyder said. “We trust guys too in those situations, particularly when he gets rebounds and run. As you said, we were actually playing through our bigs for a majority game late because it gave us a chance to get movement. In that case, it’s really it doesn’t matter who brings the ball up for us.”