Missed shots aside, Hawks need to be better defensively in Game 2

The Hawks held a postmortem video review of their Game 1 loss to the Wizards on Monday.

What did it show?

“Mistakes,” Paul Millsap said.

Where?

“Everywhere,” he added.

The No. 1 seed Hawks dropped the opening game of their Eastern Conference semifinal against the No. 5 seed Wizards, 104-98, Sunday afternoon, losing home-court advantage immediately to start the best-of-seven series.

The Hawks lost with a woeful shooting second half. They made just 25 percent of their shots, including 18 percent in the fourth quarter. Yet, many of those shots were quality looks at the basket. That has the Hawks encouraged despite the defeat.

“We played well enough to win the game,” Millsap said. “Internally, we felt we played well enough to win the game. A few crucial mistakes. A few plays let them back in the game and they made a ball game out of it.

“Let me be specific. We feel good about it. A 10-point lead going into halftime, come back out, missed open shots. We took good shots, missed some open shots. [We weren’t] as aggressive as we needed to be so we feel good about it.”

Coach Mike Budenholzer again acknowledged, as he did postgame, that the Hawks need to be more aggressive and not rely on the jump shot. The Wizards made 19 free throws while the Hawks took just 14. Getting to the basket to score, draw a foul or create another scoring opportunity is part and parcel of the Hawks’ offense.

“You have to give the defense credit,” Budenholzer said. “They did some things well. But also, in reviewing and looking, there are a lot of shots that we would take again, and again, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that. In that sense, you feel like there are things that we can do better. But if you are being critical, I don’t think it was the shots that we were getting.”

So, the Hawks missed open shots. However, as it usually does, the biggest was defense.

Bradley Beal scored a game-high 28 points and John Wall added 18 points. Combined, the Wizards backcourt combined for 46 points, 14 assists, 14 rebounds, three blocks, two steals and just three turnovers.

The Wizards ran a solid pick-and-roll game and the Hawks acknowledged they must be better defensively at the point of attack. They will continue to play a team-oriented defense but they must be better on the ball.

“We maybe were screened too much,” DeMarre Carroll said. “Not letting John Wall dictate where he wants to go on the court. That will be a big key.”

Budenholzer said there can be improvement in the pick-and-roll game but he was more concerned with transition defense and rebounding. The Hawks were only outrebounded 54-52 and had one more offensive rebound. However, the Wizards turned their offensive rebounds into 25 second-chance points (10 of 15). The Hawks had just 14 second-chance points (5 of 21).

“It’s mostly transition,” Millsap said. “The pick-and-roll is pretty good. The scout and the game plan for the pick-and-roll game is pretty good. Just transition, we gave up transition buckets, we gave up offensive rebounds. Critical mistakes like that will cost you games.