TOUGH SCHEDULE
Entering Thursday’s NBA games, the Hawks have played the most games in the league, 14. Here is a breakdown:
No. of games; No. of teams
14; 1
13; 2
12; 15
11; 9
10; 2
9; 1
Paul Millsap gave the PG-13 version when describing the recent mood of Hawks’ players and coaches.
They lost to the Nets on Tuesday for their third consecutive defeat and fourth in five games and, with no rest, faced the Kings on Wednesday. The Hawks ended the slide, despite missing two starters, with a 103-97 win behind a 23-point, 16-rebound effort from Millsap. It was what happened in those few hours in between games that proved so valuable.
“A bunch of guys who were pretty much (expletive) off,” Millsap said after the win. “Not ticked off at the coach or the other team. Ticked off at ourselves. The effort hasn’t been there. The intensity hasn’t been there. The focus hasn’t been there. So, we can only be mad at ourselves for the losses. Hopefully, tonight moves us toward the right direction.”
With limited practice time in a jam-packed start to the season, the Hawks held another film session before facing the Kings. It’s a rarity that an NBA team would choose to spend time watching previous games and not be entirely focused on the task at hand. The Hawks had no choice. There were issues during the recent slide that needed to be addressed — immediately.
“When you play all these games and you don’t get to practice and you don’t get to watch film, there is no accountability because of that,” Kyle Korver said. “You get a little sloppy. The last few games we were a little sloppy, and we were a little run down. We had some really poor performance. Before the game, we didn’t really talk about Sacramento a whole lot.
“(Coach Mike Budenholzer) broke it down. We finally watched film. We watched film of ourselves, and we watched our mistakes. He pointed out where we have to be better. He challenged us. We still didn’t play a perfect game, but I feel like we competed harder. That’s what you have to do to be a good team.”
The Hawks (9-5) have played 14 games, entering Thursday’s NBA games, the most of any team. Only two teams have played 13 games (the Raptors and Trail Blazers), while 15 teams have played 12 games, nine teams have played 11 games, two teams have played 10 games and one team (the Wizards) has played nine games.
In fact, Korver reminded, Thursday and Friday marks the first time all season the team has gone two days without a game. Thursday was the third day the team didn’t travel or play since the start of the season Oct. 27 — a span of 24 days.
If the Hawks choose to practice Friday before departing for Saturday’s game at the Cavaliers, it will be only their third on-court session since regular-season games began. They practiced Oct. 28 and Nov. 10. The workout last week came after they fell behind the Timberwolves by 34 points before erasing the deficit only to come up short. That practice also featured a film session, a staple of coach Mike Budenholzer.
“Not a lot, but at the same time I think it was necessary,” Thabo Sefolosha said of the rare pregame film study. “We were a little bit slacking on the effort. We just needed to see a few things on video as a group, look at each other in the eyes and decide to do better.”
Nothing allows for accountability like a film session. Budenholzer showed examples where players were trying to make the assist pass and not just a pass to the open man trusting in the system that the assist will come. That hindered the ball movement. They were shown defensive miscues, rebounding issues and, at times, a lack of hustle.
“Most coaches would tell you, no matter how well you scout a team if you are not prepared yourself, no matter how great the game plan is you are not going to win,” Korver said. “We had a lot of slippage the last couple weeks. Coach really challenged a lot of us individuals and as a group to be better.”
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