Former Hawks GM Rick Sund used to say that the NBA essentially is a make-or-miss league: make open shots and you win, miss them and you lose.
Sund usually offered this theory after another disappointing Hawks playoff exit precipitated by iso-heavy offense and bushels of misses on inefficient shot attempts. It also ignored the significant role other factors play in winning. But, generally speaking, Sund was right: it's difficult to win without shooting well.
That brings us to the current Hawks, who aren't shooting like they did during the regular season. There is not some fundamental issue with teams that shoot a lot of 3-pointers (as Phil Jackson recently suggested in trollific tweets), nor are the Hawks t jacking up lots of bad shots. The Hawks just aren't making enough open 3s.
In the playoffs the Hawks have been as good on defense (100.6 points allowed per 100 possessions, ranked sixth) as they were during the regular season (100.7, seventh). But their postseason offensive rating (104.4) is significantly worse than their regular season offensive rating (106.2) due in large part to a drop in effective field-goal percentage from 52.7 to 49.7 percent.
The shot selection is fine. The NBA's tracking stats show that in the playoffs the Hawks are taking nearly as many "open" or "wide open" 3-pointers (27 percentage of their overall shots) as they did during the regular season (27.5). The same thing applies, to a lesser extent, to their 2-point attempts : 21.1 percent have been open or wide open in the playoffs, compared to 23.7 during the regular season.
During the playoffs, the Hawks have attempted 23.5 “open” or “wide open” 3-point attempts per game (no defender within three feet), compared to 6.2 challenged 3-pointers per game. During the regular season they attempted 17.9 open or wide open 3-point attempts per game, compared to 3.7 challenged 3-pointers per game. (Their playoff pace of 96.4 is nearly the same as their regular season pace of 96.3.)
The Hawks are taking challenged 3s at a slightly higher rate but their real problem is they aren’t making as many open looks.
In 10 playoff games the Hawks are shooting 37.4 percent on “open” 3-pointers, (defender four to six feet away from the shooter) and 37.5 percent on wide open 3-point attempts (no defender within six feet). During the regular season the Hawks made 36.9 percent of their open 3-pointers and 39.4 percent of their wide open 3-pointers.
The difference in shooting percentag on wide open threes isn't large but it's significant in playoff games that come down to a handful of possessions. Too many misses and not enough makes have the Hawks laboring in the postseason.
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