The good, bad and ugly: Hawks can adjust but are looking for better starts

LOS ANGELES — The Hawks have shown that they can be a team that can adapt in the midst of a game.

For the sixth time this season, the Hawks (6-5) fell into a double-digit deficit in the first quarter. The Hawks have a 3-3 record in those games.

Slow starts aren’t unusual within the NBA, but on the other hand, the Hawks have lost double-digit leads over the final three quarters of a game only four times.

Here is the good, the bad and the ugly in the Hawks’ 105-102 win over the Clippers on Monday at the Intuit Dome.

The good

In the five games preceding Monday’s win, the Hawks had a different role player step up and deliver the type of performances that lend themselves to victories.

On Monday, it was Vit Krejci’s turn. He scored nine points in 48 seconds before ending the night with a career-best game, with 28 points, eclipsing his previous high of 20 points. He made eight 3-point shots, all of which he stepped into with confidence.

The Hawks have tried to look at a variety of lineups throughout the season because they value the depth that they have on their team. While the rotations haven’t worked out every time, it serves as a vote of confidence from the coaching staff that they trust the players.

“It was kind of like a gradual thing where I felt the confidence that he had in me, and as a player, that’s the most important thing,” Krejci said. “You feel that confidence from your coach, and he keeps telling you, shoot the ball. Shoot the ball. Be aggressive. Be aggressive. So that’s the best feeling as a player you can get from your coach.”

The (sort of) bad

The Hawks have a top-10 defense and one good enough to rank in the top five over the past seven games, where they have a 5-2 record. That defense got them back into Monday’s game against the Clippers.

The Hawks trailed by 17 points with 8:35 to play in the second quarter, but they forced the Clippers into tough shots. The Hawks put bodies on the Clippers, forcing players such as James Harden to go to their off hand. When the Clippers missed their field-goal attempts, the Hawks crashed the glass.

Then it was their defense that solidified their win after they could not come up with a rebound after a pair of missed free throws. Harden pushed the ball ahead to Nicolas Batum, and Krejci deflected it away. Mouhamed Gueye corralled and quickly passed it to half court before the Clippers could trap.

“I think we just made a collective effort; obviously, Harden had it going a little bit,” Hawks forward Jalen Johnson said. “So, I think once those last two minutes came about, like, and other than that foul we got, we played a great, great defensive game. And I felt that way ever since they got off to a high start and we just kind of kind of never looked back, and kind of kept building.”