When the Hawks acquired Justin Holiday from the Kings during the offseason, coach Nate McMillan knew he was getting another trusted piece in the rotation. Now Holiday has helped the team achieve its best 10-game start (7-3) to a season since 2016-17.
Holiday has held his opponents to 28.6% of their 3-point attempts on roughly 2.8 attempts per game. On top of that, he’s been one of the Hawks’ go-to perimeter defenders because of his ability to get through screens mostly unscathed.
Before Monday, Holiday leaned on his ability to make an impact on defense as he tried to get into a rhythm on offense.
“It does two things, really one, at least I know I can impact the game, regardless of what the shots are doing, first of all, and then usually, it’s just like, some guys the other way around, right?” Holiday said. “(If) they score, they defend better. If I’m defending well, that’s something that does feel good to me. So, usually it kind of gets me activated on the offensive end and get going that way.”
Holiday made four of his seven 3-point attempts in the Hawks’ 117-98 win over the Bucks on Monday. Until then, he had shot 28.9% from long range but did not feel deterred because he delivered what the Hawks needed on the other end of the floor.
So when he made his first 3-pointer with 13.7 seconds remaining in the first quarter, his only thought was to make another bucket.
“That’s how I feel most of the game,” Holiday said. “Like, when I’m shooting, if I can get more and make more, especially if I miss, I’m definitely going to shoot more. So, that’s all I’m thinking of is, how can I get up and score within the offense, you know, and help my team really. Until the game was over, I really don’t think about it. Because I couldn’t tell you how many I made until you just told me. So, yeah, I just tried to make them. Really, that’s pretty much it.”
Holiday’s consistency on defense and his approach to the game has instilled confidence in McMillan, who said that Holiday follows his off-nights by hitting the gym the next day to work himself into a rhythm.
McMillan added that Holiday has been invaluable to the Hawks and that the 10-year veteran’s shots will continue to fall.
“Well, that’s his game,” McMillan said. “He plays both sides of the ball. And, everybody has to condition themselves to be able to play their game. It’s still early in the season. I don’t think conditioning is a problem for him. It’s just one of those (things). You’re gonna have a couple of games where the shot may not fall for you, but you have to have confidence in yourself, you have to get in here and work on that. And I have confidence that it’s going to fall, which is what happened. He continued to work at it. We continued to get him the ball, and he knocked down some shots last night.”
With the season unfolding, the Hawks feel confident in the progress they have made. They will have tough tests in the coming stretch of games, but Monday’s win over the Bucks left them feeling empowered.
“I feel like we’re a few steps above the last time I talked to you guys about it,” Holiday said. “Especially after how we played (Monday) night. From great players, we have to stop to also, the teammates are also good, and we have to stop as well.
“Because (the Bucks), that’s like a really good team that has two to three guys that can go get a bucket, but it has a whole bunch of other guys that do their job extremely, extremely well (and) knock down shots. So to be able to stop a complete team like that shows that we’re going in the right direction. And now the next thing is to see if we can be consistently doing it.”
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