Five observations from the Hawks’ 112-86 loss to the Wizards Friday night.
1. There were few words. The Hawks had a chance to prove themselves against a team right on their heels in the standings. They have a chance to prove themselves against those teams narrowly ahead of them in the standings.
They did neither.
The Hawks trailed by 15 in the first quarter, 25 in the second and 30 in the third.
“I have no idea,” Paul Millsap said when asked the reason for a slow start. “It happened so fast. It wasn’t anything they did. We just came out lackadaisical. We didn’t give them any resistance. They were able to go wherever they wanted to go. Shoot wherever they wanted to shoot. It’s more on us than them.”
2. There was a lack of effort on both sides of the ball, according to coach Mike Budenholzer and several players. However, the defense was not good from the jump. The Wizards scored 37 first-quarter points.
Budenholzer said the Hawks were not aggressive enough and offered little defensive presence.
“Some nights you don’t play well,” Budenholzer said. “We didn’t play well tonight but I think to not have a more competitive effort, to not have a better focus and competitiveness, it’s a bad combination to play poorly and to not compete at the level of your opponent.”
3. John Wall and Bradley Beal are a dynamic backcourt for the Wizards. However, before and after the game, Budenholzer was concerned with small forward Otto Porter Jr.
Porter finished with 21 points on 7 of 11 shooting, including 5 of 7 from 3-point range.
“It feels like Otto Porter is a big part of what they are doing when he’s spreading the court and making 3’s,” Budenholzer said. “Their first bucket is a 3 from Porter. Beal and Wall deserve a lot of the credit but the way Porter is shooting the 3 is a big part of their success recently.”
4. Yes, the Hawks started poorly. The Wizards shot 56 percent from the floor (14 of 25) and 56 percent (5 of 9) from 3-point range in the first quarter. The Hawks shot 38 percent and, luckily, four of their nine field goals were 3-pointers. The Hawks trailed by double-digits early.
Sure, credit the good shooting. But discredit the poor defense.
You can bet there will be film to watch on Saturday before the Hawks host the Knicks on Sunday.
The problem is the Hawks are facing those big deficits with far too much regularity this season. They’ve come back from 20-point deficits but they cannot continually fall behind by such margins.
“We can’t come out like that,” Dennis Schroder said. “We have to be better. It starts with me. I’ve got to set the tone. I’ll take that.
“We’ve done that a few times this season, down by 20. We can’t have games like that. If we are losing, we have to lose with pride. But not by 30 or 40.”
5. The Wizards got rebounds, loose balls and points in transition. They outrebounded the Hawks 52-41, including 13-8 on the offensive glass. They led in points in the paint 40-30. They led in fast-break points 18-10.
The Hawks finished with 20 turnovers and many of them were just plain ugly miscues.
Millsap put the onus for the slow start on the starters.
“We’ll watch film and see,” Millsap said of the issues. “Off the top of my head, we didn’t give 100 percent.”
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