The Hawks have no interest in forcing shots from long range but instead want to make sure they’re attacking the basket. That is, they’re committed to attacking the basket until they fully get their legs under them.
Despite shooting 37.4% on 3-point shots last season, the Hawks had a cold start in their season-opening win over the Rockets on Wednesday. The Hawks made only 7 of 25 3-point shots in their 117-107 win, the seventh-worst 3-point shooting percentage opening night.
But the Hawks aren’t interested in doing what the analytics suggest they should. They are interested in refining what their players are succeeding with. As of now, that’s attacking the basket and sinking shots from midrange.
“We do look at our analytics, and we do try to take advantage of that,” Hawks coach Nate McMillan said after Thursday’s practice. “But when it comes to a style of play, we’re not a full, all-out analytics team. You know, there’s some teams that, they want to get up 50 3s, and they won’t take a midrange shot. And we’re not that.”
So, the Hawks tapped into attacking the basket, as well as their midrange game, to shuttle past the Rockets. The Hawks scored roughly 48% of their points inside the paint, while another 17% came from midrange.
To make it work, the team leaned on its ball movement, ending the night with 30 assists. Trae Young and Dejounte Murray combined for 24, setting the tone for the Hawks.
McMillan has challenged his team to dole out at least 25 assists per game. He uses the NBA average and the number of assists the top teams in the league average and considers his personnel to determine that 25 assists is the right goal to get the ball movement he wants.
That’s how the team will be able to put pressure on opposing defenses and allow the right lanes to open for them to attack inside the paint.
“So that’s what I was basically saying. It’s not that we don’t use our analytics, and we don’t believe in that, and we don’t study it and try to take advantage of it,” McMillan said. “If we have an uncontested (2-point shot), we will take that. Our game plan is to attack the rim. We don’t want to settle for contested shots.
“We want to keep pressure on the defense by getting to the rim, winning the free-throw line as we did last night, and really trying to force that defense to collapse on the ball, which we feel that will generate the 3-point ball. So we certainly want the 3, but we don’t live and die by it.”
The Hawks understand that it will take some time to knock off the rust. McMillan said the team still is working to get its legs strong after the long offseason. That means the team is still working through some of the soft-tissue soreness that comes with getting back into game shape.
Based on his experience and looking at some of the old-school teams, McMillan noticed that many of them find their legs around December and January. Last season, the Hawks ranked 13th in the league in 3-point shooting in October, making 33.9% of their shots. By December, they jumped to second in the league, knocking down nearly 40% of their shots.
“Once you play through that, your conditioning comes, your leg comes, all of that,” McMillan said. “You see the percentages, and all of that starts to creep up around December going into January.”
Until then, the Hawks plan to keep attacking the basket, and they’ll keep encouraging their players to take shots that they know will garner success.
“We didn’t shoot a high percentage from the 3-point line, but I think that’ll come,” McMillan said. “I liked the fact that we won the free-throw line, (and) we got to the paint. We scored 56 points in the paint, and we had 24 free-throw attempts. So, we won the free-throw line, which shows me that we were aggressive attacking the basket, and we want to continue to do that.”
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