REHawksFan

Makin a run everytime Trae sits. 

Only thing I can figure is Trae is either playing hurt or he knows his shot is off and has zero confidence. Either way he looks like Rookie season November Trae. Just ugly. 

1 minute ago, terrell said:

And he's supposed to be our "star" player..

He's not supposed to be. He IS the superstar for the Hawks. And he looks completely disinterested in playing the game right now. No idea why.

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

We're just swinging the ball around the perimter with Trae standing at the top. Move your ass.

I legit think Trae has no clue how to play without the ball in his hands for 95% of the offense. He just looks lost. 

He doesn't take shots.

His passes are put of sync.

He's making mind numbingly stupid turnovers. 

I'm speechless with Trae. Just What. The. Hell 

Down 16 after 1 qtr and somehow it could have been so much worse. Hornets are a terrible team. Shot 35% overall. Hawks makin them look like the Lakers. 

Just a pathetic effort. How the hell do you get out boarded by 13 in a single qtr? 

5 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Yes, more touches for Hunter, he has a mismatch at SF on switches. He's too big, quick and strong for most.

When Gallo was available, we saw the Collins/Gallo combination.  His ability to handle the ball and make plays from that position is invaluable.

Edit: I'd be concerned about the defense with a Trae/Bogi backcourt. Who would have guarded Irving and Durant with that lineup?

I think defining the roles removes some of the roster advantage the Hawks have.  That is.....flexibility. When playing the Nets, you need to have Cam and Hunter on Kyrie and KD as they are the best D guys you have. They can at least aggravate the heck out of those two elite players. However, the Nets are the exception not the rule as most teams don't have 2 elite offensive players. So most nights, you can go with a Trae / Bogie backcourt and be ok with Hunter picking up the toughest D assignment. 

The ideal scenario is Cam coming around offensively as we can all see he has ELITE defensive potential. If we can insert him into the starting group next to Trae without worrying about being an offensive liability, all the better. 

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

I hope this answees6everyonr's questions about Trae this year.

It doesn't answer ANY questions about Trae. It's just a chart that graphically illustrates what we've all seen with our eyes during games. How does that possibly answer any of the questions we have?  

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

Heurter has actually looked better handling the ball in the last couple of games.  His shot wasn't falling last night but he's getting a little better at play making.  I'm not opposed to letting other guys run sets and manage the offense for short spurts -- as I think it's necessary for guys like Heurter/Cam to develop -- but in crunch time, I want Trae with the ball.

Say it louder so the fools in the back can here. Put it on a billboard on COP. Stream it on the jumbotron. Somebody hack LP's cell phone like a damn political ad.  Just get this message through to LP. 

Rant over. 

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

Thibs waited until the 4th quarter and then started trying to deny Trae the ball.  It worked great.   We had no answer.   You deny Trae, that neutralizes Collins to an extent and the other guys stumble and brick their way to the finish line.  

You're probably right, but my pushback is this.: teams have been trying to deny Trae the ball for 2 years.  It's LP's damn job to figure it out and have a plan in place to get him the ball late in the game. Either as a facilitator or (my preference) as the primary scoring option. I'm just a firm believer that you ride or die with the ball in your superstar's hands at the end of an NBA game.  

I'll also just say that Trae looks to me like he's got all these new shiny weapons to play with and he's going out of his way to try and get those assists to them when sometimes the smarter play is for him to take that jumper or floater in the lane.  Case in point, one of his turnovers last night was him trying to force the ball to Clint inside when he was point blank in front of the rim on a broken play. Just shoot the floater. 

Didn't have a chance to post during the game and it was probably just as well.  What a frustrating game to watch. Hawks had double digit leads in the 3rd qtr of both the last 2 games and lost both.  Just ridiculous.  

Some thoughts:

1. I love Trae. No, I LOVE Trae. He's avg 28.6 / 9.1 on the season. Top 5 in both. Yippee. And yet the eye test tells me he's largely playing like crap. Too many turnovers. Too many passive, I don't give a $*** type plays.  The Hawks had the ball down 4 or 5 on at least 2 straight possessions late in the game and I'm not sure Trae even touched the ball.  IF he's your Alpha, your leader, that just can't happen.  It was the same thing I complained about after the Nets loss.  He HAS to be better.  (I'll also just add that his efficiency has gone down seemingly every game, which sucks).
2. Unless Trae goes ballistic, the Hawks aren't going to win many games when your bench production is 14 pts on 17 shots.  Just not going to happen.
3. The wings outside of Hunter really hurt the Hawks last night.  Cam, Kev, and Bogie combined for 22 pts on 9-26 shooting. Yuck.  
4. Stating the obvious I know, but the Hawks REALLY REALLY miss Gallo.  Even more than his consistent shot is the seemingly calming influence he brings to the team. 
5. Why we paying Rondo $7.5M to watch a combination of Goodwin, Bogie, and Kev run the 2nd team?  If he's available he should be playing. Goodwin played 8 min. You tellin me Rondo is available but can't manage 8 min? 
6. I'm still not sure how Clint and JC are going to fit together and I wonder if them being on the floor together makes the offense harder. I was looking at the two so far, and they avg 28/19 between the two of them. For comparison, JC and the starting C last year avg 30/17.  Obviously Clint is a HUGE upgrade over anyone the Hawks ran out there last year at C, but is the combo of JC and Clint a net positive?  Not yet offensively.  
7. It's only been 7 games so it's not time to draw any definitive conclusions, but I do think it's safe to say the Hawks will only go as far as their 3pt shooting takes them. Live by the 3. Die by the 3 as they say.  In their 4 wins, they shot 41.5% from 3 which would rank 3rd in the NBA. In their 3 losses, they shot 35.8% which would be 17th in the NBA.  And that number is inflated due to the Nets game. In the last 2 losses, they shot 33.3% which would rank 26th in the NBA.  Ugly. 
8. Finally, the defense.  Hawks gave up 1.33 pps against the Knicks. Not quite as bad as the Nets 1.45 pps in that loss, but still really bad.  The knicks are good but not great. Same with the Cavs. Should have won both games even with the poor shooting if they only played a modicum of defense.  

Oof. Ugly game. Ugly loss. Pretty obvious they were on the back end of 2. Mental errors. Dead legs. Missed bunnies. Missed fts. Just bad. Oh well. Move on to the next one. 

Ps. Still think something is going on with Trae. Juat not himself. 

The 2nd of a back to back, against a good squad that doesn't garner a lot of public attention, and coming off a huge 2 game set that the team even referred to as a measuring stick miniseries. This is a game I could easily see the team not coming out for and the Cavs taking it to them.

I'd love to see them handle their business tonight just like its any other game. Would signal a maturity to this team and would be a really good sign for the season imo. 

Thoughts?

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

This. Trae also was on the injury report with a bad calf, might have affected him some.

Good call. He looked off late in the game as all his misses were short. 

4 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

With the new weapons, he going to get less shots. His assists are a little down compared to last year too though, that might also be due to reduced usage . Quick frankly, Id rather see 6 guys in double digits than see Trae drop 50. 

As long as they are winning i agree. In games like Wednesday, Trae needs to be more assertive imo. But tonight showed a ton as they won big by featuring other players really without anything special from Trae. 

Efficiency will drive Traes season one way or another. Tonight was inefficient and he ended up with only 21 pts on 21 shots. Coming into tonight he was avg 33 on 16 I think. We need him to be efficient cuz we may not get 23 from hunter or 20 from cam every night. Opponent won't shoot poorly from 3 every night either. .

1 minute ago, Final_quest said:

This was an awesome win, but I actually think we showed more in the last game.  

I’m also wondering about Trae’s mentality.  Did the stories about him drawing cheap fouls get to his head?  He stopped cold turkey.  

I'm going to assume Trae is still figuring out how to best play with his new teammates. He hasn't looked like himself to me since the Grizzlies game.

As for the fouling, I doubt he cares about the chatter. It's more likely he just had not need to draw cheap fouls as the Hawks were up 7-10 or more all game and they never really got into the bonus early on. 

3 minutes ago, marco102 said:

John Collins "We are not a joke!" Y'all the young guys are getting confident!

Btw, this is no longer Trae Young and the Hawks.  It's just the Hawks.

Yeah. It should not be lost in all the euphoria that the Hawks went on the road and beat a top team in the East by 18 in a game where Trae had an inefficient  21 and 7.  They didn't win tonight solely because of Trae's contributions. This TEAM is really good.

4 minutes ago, Bonkers said:

If there is enough outrage I think they might make it an offensive foul or worse (a dirty player will slide their foot under his). So I think Trae needs to watch out

 

During the 4th qtr I think he was trying to do it too much instead of playing his game

It's a fine line imo.  I said last night I thought he crossed it in the 4th. If he's drawing contact and getting to line in the course of actually shooting or even if the defense is being overly aggressive then I have no issue with it.  But last night it looked like he was hunting fouls instead of shots or assists for a stretch in the 4th.  

I don't know that there's any corollary but during that same time he took only 2 fga and missed both.  He seemed out of rhythm after doing all that foul seeking.  

2 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

The Pace of that game was insane.  You are absolutely right.   The indicator that the defense wasn't great was how well they shot the ball but both teams shot incredibly high %.  The 145 points is overblown though as you pointed out.   A few bone headed plays at the end cost us the game.   But KD and Kyrie are tough covers.   In the end they beat us. 

Don't want to sound like I'm complaining about the game too much.  I was incredibly pleased with the performance out of our guys for the most part.  I thought going into the game they had the 2 best players and generally speaking in the NBA, the team with the superstar players wins more often than not.  The fact that the Hawks led nearly the entire game and really controlled the game for the most part all the way until their superstars took over was impressive I thought.  

Our guys just need to learn how to make those late game stops against guys like KD and Kyrie.  Most teams don't have those superstars though so most nights the Hawks offense will just overwhelm teams despite suspect defense.  

Hawks held the Bulls to 1.19 pps, the Grizz to 1.20 pps, and the Pistons to 1.22 pps. All games they won comfortably due to elite offensive efficiency.   

6 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

He had 10 points in the final 7 minutes of the game. 

3 trips to the line for 6 points off FTs.   

Made 2 layups. 

2 assists for 5 points.

I'm aware. What I'm saying is in the last 20 minutes of game time he had 5 FGA. That's not enough for your star player imo. 

I think in those last 7 min he had 4 fga. Hes too good to only have 4 fga late in the game. 

Its fine to draw fouls. If he's getting fouled on drives or on shots fine. But I felt like he settled for jumping into players rather than even trying to shoot. How many times have we seen late game and-1 opportunities out of Trae? He can still get to the line. Just do it as he's attempting a legit shot. 

1 minute ago, bleachkit said:

Me personally, I want the best shot, be it from Trae or someone else. 

I'm with you all the way til the last few minutes. Then I want my super star to take over the game like KD and Kyrie did. They were taking - and making - really tough shots because they are elite players.

I have no doubt they could have passed to Joe Harris at any time for an open shot but instead they took matters into their own hands. As the opponent, i was praying Kyrie would pass to Harris for a shot rather than him take a contested shot. Because I KNEW he was going to make it. Elite players do more often than not. 

I rather take my chances with Trae even in a contested shot than Hunter wide open in the corner. Or Bogie contested from the corner. Trae has proven he can handle that. 

13 minutes ago, marco102 said:

I LOVE IT! It's a skill and people have made it out to be this travesty.  James Harden is smart, the easiest shot you can get in a game is a free throw.  Why not get as many as you can.

Also, I'd say about 85 - 90% of Trae's fouls are not controversial.  They are legitimate fouls.

I'm fine with him supplementing his game with drawing fouls. I'm less ok with him neglecting his shots because he's hunting every time down the floor. He went from the 730 mark in the 3rd to around the 5 min mark in the 4th without attempting a fg. He was on the bench for some of that, but still. And I think he only attempted 4 shots in the last 5 min of the game. Just seems like your star player should look to score more at the end of the game. Especially when their stars are draining buckets every trip down the stretch.

3 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

He looks the same to me. What they need is a healthy Porzingus. The roster is honestly not that great.

Yeah I never got the whole Mavs love entering the season. They have Luka, a chronically injured KP, and a bunch of avg nba players. And it turns out their budding MVP is actually fat and out of shape. Not exactly a recipe for contending in the NBA