There was a litany that went wrong for the Hawks in Game 1.

The list of woes in the playoff series opener against the Pacers on Sunday included:

  • A large free-throw discrepancy.
  • A sizeable rebound disadvantage.
  • Too many second-chance and fast-break points.
  • Poor player reaction to foul calls.
  • Defensive breakdowns.
  • Poor shooting from outside scoring threats.

In spite of all that, the Hawks trailed by only eight points with 7:23 remaining. That is a positive the team is taking into Game 2 on Wednesday, when the best-of-seven series continues in Indianapolis.

“We are not going to sit and dwell on Game 1 the entire time we are here,” coach Larry Drew said. “We are going to look at Game 1. Look at what we did wrong. Look at what we did well. How can we get better? We are going to talk about it. We are going to come out on the floor.

“We are going to go through it. We are going to shift our focus, not just how bad we played Game 1, but how well we are going to play in Game 2.”

The Hawks have shown a propensity to fall behind by double-digits this season. They’ve also shown an ability to erase the deficits. The Hawks have won by erasing at least a 10-point deficit 10 times this season. One of those comebacks came in a win over the Pacers.

Josh Smith said that while there are positives to take from the Game 1 loss, there a lessons in the negatives.

“We really focused on the negatives because we need to do a good job of cleaning up our mistakes,” said Smith, who will play in Game 2 after suffering an ankle sprain. “We focused on a little bit of the positives, but for the most part we really needed to see the negative (things) that we need to get better at.”

Drew said the Hawks will make some adjustments for Game 2. One will be to find a way to shake Kyle Korver free from Paul George and get him some open shot attempts. Korver was 2-of-7, including 1-of-4 from 3-point range, in Sunday’s loss. He was not the only outside threat who struggled. Devin Harris was 4-of-9, and John Jenkins was 0-of-2. As a team, the Hawks were 7-of-17 from 3-point range, with Jeff Teague and DeShawn Stevenson making both their attempts.

Drew said the Pacers face-guarded Korver in all five games this season. They guard Korver, who finished second in the NBA in 3-point field-goal percentage, with Paul George.

“You can see that they are not going to leave Kyle Korver under no circumstances,” Drew said. “We are going to have to try to do some things a little bit differently just to try to get him freed up. The way (George) plays Kyle, it’s like he’s married to him. Everywhere Kyle goes, he goes right with him. You try to screen him, he’s right there.”

Another thing Drew would like to see is his guards make better decisions once they break down the Pacers’ defense and get into the paint. Although the Pacers have 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert as their last line of defense, there are better options that forcing a shot that misses or is blocked.

“There were some opportunities when Al (Horford) was open,” Teague said. (Hibbert) comes over so hard to challenge shots, we can dump it off to Al to get some easy layups for him. Hopefully we’ll look for that and make it happen.”

From a defensive standpoint, the Hawks will have to contain George. The Pacers’ All-Star forward, had a triple-double in Game 1. He scored 23 points, 17 coming from the free-throw line. One option will be to have Smith match up with George more often. The risk is allowing power forward David West more freedom.

Smith said he did not know if the game plan will call for him to defend George more in Game 2, but that his focus is on West, who scored 77 points in three regular-season and one playoff games (19.3 point average) against the Hawks.

“We still had ample amount of time to come back and win (Game 1) even given what the difference was in the free throws, even given what the difference was as far as how well we played, how well we didn’t play,” Drew said. “We were still within striking distance. We’ve been in that situation before. That wasn’t anything new to us. We just couldn’t come up with the plays down the stretch.”