Five observations from the Hawks’ 121-85 loss to the Pistons Friday night.
1. Could changes to the lineup be in order? Perhaps. Coach Mike Budenholzer swapped out all five starters late in the second quarter – and that reserve unit started the second half. The coach was clearly fed up with the results of the starting group.
When asked following the 36-point loss whether he will look at possible lineup changes, Budenholzer said “We’ll look at everything.”
The Hawks have lost five straight and seven of the past eight games. They are reeling. Budenholzer said he swapped out the entire starting lineup to try to find a spark and “pick it up a little bit.”
2. Dwight Howard had his worse game as a Hawk with just two points and six rebounds. Keep in mind, he also had a four-point, seven-rebound game. The matchup with center Andre Drummond was clearly won by the Pistons. Drummond had 14 points and 14 rebounds.
Howard said one of the adjustments the Hawks must make going forward is how teams defend him in the pick-and-roll.
“They are really forcing us to do different things out of the pick-and-roll,” Howard said. “For myself, teams are sending three or four bodies at me when I roll to the basket and making sure I don’t get those easy buckets. They are forcing our guards to have to make plays. It’s a little adjustment that we have to make.”
3. Hawks players insisted after the game that the losing streak has not fractured the team. Yet, these are trying times.
“We are struggling right now,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said. “We have to stay the course. It’s the first 20 games but at the same time, we’ve got to buckle down and play with pride. Now, pride comes into play. Now, all the hard work we put in in the summer to get to this point, a lot of people would kill to be in this position right now. We’ve got to take advantage of this opportunity and play for the team, play for the coaching staff and play for the city. That’s the most important thing, play for the city and make sure they have our backs.”
Howard said better now than later for the current slide.
“We’ve got to stay positive,” Howard said. “We can’t make excuses. Stay together. Don’t put our heads down and things will change. This little thing we are going through now, even though we don’t want to, I think it’s best we are going through it now and not at the end of the season. All the things we need to clean up, offensively and defensively, are being exposed right now. It gives us time to work on it. So come playoff time and later on in the season, we’ll have all that down pat. The best thing we can do now is not hold our heads, keep positive, speak life into the situation and keep pushing.”
4. The offense is the biggest issues. The Hawks are missing shots. They are not adapting when opposing defense straight switch on pick-and-rolls. They continue to turn the ball over – although they had just seven against the Pistons.
Budenholzer said he is not happy with the offense before a shot is even attempted.
“I would say a lot of possessions are not good enough,” Budenholzer said. “We are not getting the looks that we need to get. Then I think it puts a lot of pressure when you do get a good look. There is more of a priority, more of a need, to make those good ones. The game gets hard that way. You want to be free-flowing. I don’t think we are getting enough good possessions to make those good looks flow right.”
One could glean that the Hawks are tightening up when getting good shots. Thabo Sefolosha said he senses more frustration than pressure with the misses.
5. The Hawk have had a compacted schedule with nine games in 15 days – and just two at home. You can added one more day and one more road game to the current stretch as the Hawks play at the Raptors Saturday. That has left little serious practice time for the Hawks to get in a gym and try to fix their issues.
“Honestly, I think we need some time in the gym to work on ourselves,” Kyle Korver said.
