Friday night, with the NBA season nearly one-third done and with the leaders of their conference coming to town, figured to be an occasion to get a good, honest read on the Hawks.
However, I would have gained more clarity staying home paging through some James Joyce translated into Mandarin.
This was a night for a statement game. The Hawks were rested, coming off a three-day break in the schedule. They were home before a big, loud crowd, announced as a sellout. Take care of the Brooklyn Nets and prove yourself ready to climb the Eastern Conference standings and to gain the postseason homecourt advantage they covet.
And loud and clear came the statement: The Hawks are a PBS British mystery, and we’re not even to the first pledge break yet. The game is barely afoot.
Losing 113-105 to the Nets, these Hawks slipped back to .500 (13-13) and into a confirmed state of averageness. They awoke Saturday morning in ninth place in the East, a conference that is neither in awe of the Hawks’ playoff run of a season ago nor standing still awaiting their assumed ascendance. And here’s proof that numbers will dance to any tune you care to play: The Hawks are both the team that has won nine of their past 13 games and lost four of their past six. You decide through which prism to view them.
Based on Friday, all we have are a few points to raise; do with them what you will:
This remains a young team, in need of more finishing school.
All memories of the Hawks of Lloyd Pierce last season are of a team that went looking for ways to lose at the end. Under new management, that trend reversed itself nicely. That’s not to say they can’t still slip in the fourth quarter. As in scoring only 14 points in the fourth Friday.
As Nate McMillan, the coach who got the Hawks right when he took over in March, put it after Friday’s game, “We got to learn to win these games again.”
He meant games against skilled teams like the Nets, capable of pairing size with agility and guarding the Hawks man-to-man, switching at will and losing little in the process. You know, teams that require the Hawks’ best, most patient and studied approach. Not the one that appeared rather disconnected Friday in shooting only 27% from the floor in the fourth quarter (and just 1-of-8 from 3-point range). Those are not the memories from a season ago they want to be summoning now.
Trae Young can’t always be all things to this team.
Young once more Friday put up a 30-10 stat line, scoring 31 paired with 10 assists. Yet he was the one taking most responsibility for Friday’s loss.
“I got to do a better job of making some shots,” he said at one point.
“Tried to force some passes into tight creases. Got to be better at that. Too many turnovers,” he said at another.
In the final two minutes, after a nose-to-navel confrontation with the best player on the planet, the Nets’ Kevin Durant, Young wasn’t what the Hawks needed. The fire that can drive him in such moments seemed to singe Young this time. He missed a free throw, put up a bad left-handed flip vaguely in the direction of the basket, missed a floater on a break, threw an almost disinterested pass in the direction of no Hawk for a turnover.
All there is to do after such moments is to move on and be thankful that bad Trae is such an aberration. And wish Bogdan Bogdanovic a speedy recovery from his ankle ailment.
Where’s the help?
Look, the Hawks are never going to be defined by their defense. Still, they’ll be presented with many tough situations they can’t score their way out of.
“We know we got to get better. There are some numbers we know we have to improve,” said McMillan, the defense-oriented type. The Hawks rank as a middling defensive team, 20th in points allowed (108.7 per game) and field-goal percentage allowed (45.5).
What glared Friday was the Nets doing little beyond the arc but getting to the basket so easily, scoring 66 points in the paint. Which raises the question: Can Clint Capela still be the dependable last line of defense that he was a season ago?
True, the Hawks are without a key defensive component, DeAndre Hunter out with an injured wrist. But there’s a better chance of the Beatles all reuniting than of any NBA team being whole and healthy at any given time. No excuses. Gotta play with what you got.
Nobody’s giving these Hawks anything.
OK, one way the Hawks can better their relative position in the East is to do everything possible to ensure that Brooklyn’s Kyrie Irving continues his stupefying flat-earth, anti-vax stand.
Tweet out supportive messages to him, like: “Jonas Salk was a Knicks fan.” Maybe FedEx him a box of leeches, reaffirming his limited faith in medical science.
Because with Irving, these Nets might pose a real, tangible threat in the East. Without him – which they are so long as he’s defying the New York vaccine mandate – it’s hard to see them as unbeatable, even with Durant and James Harden (“Two bazookas,” as McMillan called them).
In the past two weeks, the Hawks have lost to the Knicks, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Brooklyn. The champeen Milwaukee Bucks still loom. Chicago, Miami, even Washington are growing threats. All vivid reminders that the East has clearly gotten better.
The Hawks need to, as well.
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