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Official Game Thread: Hawks at Pistons

lethalweapon3

By lethalweapon3
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lethalweapon3 Grand Master

lethalweapon3

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“Thank you for coaching. You get this LOVELY parting gift!”

 

Don’t get the Avery Johnson Treatment!

The fastest coach in NBA history to notch 50, 100, and 150 wins, Avery built from his predecessor Don Nelson’s work in Dallas, won 2006’s NBA Coach of the Year award, and later pushed Dirk’s Mavs to its first NBA Finals appearance. Then he got the boot in 2008, after a pair of first-round exits. Rick Carlisle came in and fixed things. Bada-boom, bada-bing, NBA Champions.

Except, it wasn’t that simple. Carlisle wasn’t canned by Cuban after a first-round bounce in 2010. Dirk had to re-sign rather than test the free agent waters, and the team upgraded Erick Dampier with peak-era Tyson Chandler.

Jason Kidd needed to get re-acclimated in his return to Dallas as an All-Star second banana, and the Jason Terry experiment at a sixth man, begun under Johnson, paid dividends the next several seasons under Carlisle. Carlisle needed defensive coaching help, and he got it from then-assistant Dwane Casey, whose schemes helped befuddle a young LeBron James in The Finals.

All the while, Johnson was left to drag a 12-70 Nets team out of the NBA basement. And, New Jersey.

Mark Jackson would eventually try his hand at getting a franchise out of Nellieball purgatory. He got the Splash Brothers going in the space of two seasons, pulled off a first-round upset in 2013’s playoffs, got the Warriors to 50+ wins for the first time in 20 years. But his Dubs lost in 2014’s first round to a slightly distracted Clippers club, and his Does Not Play Well with Others reputation wasn’t helping with the Dubs’ front office. MJax gets shown the door, enter Steve Kerr, 67 wins, bang, zoom, NBA title.

Well, not so fast, my friends. Draymond didn’t become a cool story until under Kerr, and only after incumbent starting forward David Lee got hurt again. Kerr had a healthy Shaun Livingston off the bench where Jackson had to make it work with, bless his heart, Jordan Crawford. But, bottom line, it all came together for G-State under Kerr’s watch. Meanwhile, Jackson’s at the media table squabbling with Jeff Van Gundy.

As a lesser example, Byron Scott got to babysit Kyrie Irving’s Cavs through the point guard’s award-winning rookie season, and then Mike Brown got one more swing at the pinata. They get bounced out of The Land just before The King announces his return. A Dubs assistant, Brown’s the only one of the two these days on NBA teams’ coaching pretend-shortlists. Scott, also a former COTY-winner and NBA Finals head coach, traded places with Brown and got the reward of coaching a retiring Kobe and the Lakers at the absolute worst possible time.

Once the narrative is set, being the coaches BEFORE the coaches that win their teams a ring, there’s not much out there in the way of recovery. Slapped with a label of being capable of taking teams only so far, getting The Avery Treatment leaves these guys constantly checking the classifieds for studio-analyst and struggling SEC school job openings.

Their fates are instructive for 2018’s Coach of the Year, Dwane Casey, who grabbed a branch before getting tossed out of the NBA head coaching tree altogether and is clinging to his role in charge of the Detroit Pistons.

Coach Casey got the heave-ho after the sin of getting repeatedly banished from LeBron’s Playoff Kingdom while running the show in Toronto. His trusty assistant, Nick Nurse, takes the reins, boom, boom, pow, the Raptors are World Champs. Only it wasn’t quite so cut-and-dry.

Casey had to figure out how to get over the hump with DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas, while Nurse got the gifts of Kawhi Leonard and, eventually, Marc Gasol. Maybe the biggest gift of all, LeBron took his talents out of the East before the season began.

Even with those presents, once the playoffs arrived, there was that whole corner-three, bouncy-ball, series-winner thing. That, and the Dubs getting Thanos’d by the health gods in the run-up to, and throughout, The Finals. But, no matter. For Nurse and the Raps’ fans, the At Least One Ring Before We All Die box is now checked.

One should take nothing away from Carlisle, Kerr or Nurse, who accomplished exactly what they were brought in to do. But for the fired coaches left behind, particularly Casey, they have the burden of proving they’re more than mere victims of circumstance. In Detroit, it’s hard to say he’s getting much help in making that happen.

When Lloyd Pierce’s club arrives for the second time, tonight, at Little Caesars Arena (7 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Detroit), the second-year coach and his Atlanta Hawks will be looking to avoid their first five-game losing streak since December 5 of last year. The Pistons are already there with a five-game skid, and native Detroiters are getting rightfully restless.

When fans of bad teams like the Hawks look on the floor, they like to see clear glimpses of their future. Trae Young is excelling at times while learning on the fly, and Kevin Huerter is showing promising signs when he’s healthy. After career highs in points against Milwaukee on Wednesday, lotto-rookies Cam Reddish (questionable with a wrist sprain; 17 points) and De’Andre Hunter (27 points and 11 rebounds) are already showing they may be turning a corner.

Like the Pistons, the Hawks sit at 4-10. But while Atlanta gets to showcase the young talent cutting their teeth, Detroit seems to be reliant on a cast of characters at risk of losing their gums. Division rivals’ fans get to enjoy the ups and downs of riding with the likes of Collin Sexton and Coby White. But Detroit fans are hard-pressed to embrace a team whose future chance at NBA prosperity appears to be in Grand Rapids (G-Leagued Euro-rookie Sekou Doumbouya) or Lithuania (Euro-stash Deividas Sirvydis).

Piston fans would love to embrace the potential of Luke Kennard, who is finally getting a chance to show opponents he is their father (17.6 PPG, 39.8 3FG%). But you can forgive them for being a bit hesitant to get too attached, after getting burned by the Khris Middleton trade way back in 2013. Luke’s a year older, now, than Khris was way back then.

Another 23-year-old prospect, Bruce Brown, has been left to start at point guard after veteran Reggie Jackson (lower back stress, out for a few more weeks) exited in the second game of the season (a 117-100 Hawks road win), the backcourt thinned further by the absence of 23-year-old guard Khyri Thomas. Beginning this season with Atlanta’s Young (38 points, 6-for-10 3FGs, 10-for-12 FTs vs. DET on Oct. 24), it has been an adventure for Brown, particularly defensively when trying to thwart dribble penetration.

When the Hawks suddenly lost John Collins, 24-year-old free agent pickup Jabari Parker (18 bench points, 8-for-11 FGs vs. DET) stepped to the forefront and broke out with (arguably?) the best play of his young career. Having to start the year without 30-year-old Blake Griffin, Detroit turned to 30-year-old free agent Markieff Morris, and the results have been less than stellar. Even with Keef’s open jumpers are going in (50.0 3FG% in last six games), his defensive nonchalance has been a drag.

Coming off an All-NBA Third Team campaign and perhaps his best offensive season, Griffin has returned guns blazing but misfiring (18.0 PPG, 43.3 2FG%, 18.8 3FG%). With Blake shedding the rust, Jackson ailing, Tony Snell out with a hip injury, Brown learning the ropes and occasionally getting caught up in them, and sixth-man Derrick Rose mixing in flashes of heroball with zeroball (team-high 5.3 APG, but 3.6 TOs/game in 24.4 MPG), winning outcomes for Detroit seems to be coming down to one player.

“Andre! Andre! He’s Their Man. If He Can’t Do It, No One Can!” That seems to literally be the case with Andre Drummond, whose team-high 18.6 PPG is accompanied by an NBA-best 16.8 RPG, plus 2.1 BPG and 1.6 SPG. Despite Drummond’s standout defensive play, Detroit ranks just 21st in D-Reb%, and 24th in D-Rating. Opponents are off to the races on turnovers (20.9 opp. points per-48, 2nd-most in NBA), and are piling up paint points (51.1 opp. points per-48, 5th-most in NBA) on the occasions Drummond can’t get a stop.

Drummond can’t possibly give them much more than he has, and it’s possible, so long as Detroit fails to turn things around, he won’t be giving them much more, either. Armed with a $28.8 million player option, Drummond and Jackson ($18 million salary) represent the best chances GM Ed Stefanski will have to yield a positive return in the short-term. The Pistons, frankly, need a Middleton-and-fluff-for-Brandon-Jennings type of deal in the worst way. And Stefanski won’t get calls back, after December 15, if an upside-looking player like Kennard doesn’t come attached with Jackson.

In the meantime, Casey is left to show everyone why he was a COTY winner just over a season ago. Gold is out of the question, but he can at least spin some fool’s gold out of the straw he has been handed, beginning by besting a Hawks team that has been one of the league’s worst defenses over the past 8 games (119.7 D-Rating, only… the Spurs?... have been worse; 10th best D-Rating in first 6 games) in front of the home crowd.

Drummond should be poised for an offensive field day against a Hawks corps of centers that is still finding its way. As was the case in blowing a late lead to Charlotte last Friday, the troubles for Detroit come defensively, in close games when opponents pack the paint, teammates run out to help Brown (minus-18 at CHI) and Langston Galloway (minus-30 at CHI on Wednesday, a 109-89 loss), and Drummond discovers he can’t cover everyone.

A stronger interior presence from Griffin and Morris would help, but more useful would be the Pistons controlling the ball and taking enough efficient shots that the outcome against bad teams doesn’t come down to the closing minutes of the final quarter.

Casey had gotten a raw deal before, when he was cut loose by Minnesota, and used his regular-season successes with a similarly floundering Toronto team to stick it to the Wolves. Getting the Pistons back to the postseason, with a .500 record, and beating the Raptors in the team’s first head-to-head were modest hits for Casey last season, his first in Motown.

But the championship celebration by Nurse's Raptors, the team awaiting the Hawks' return to Atlanta for a game tomorrow night, hits different, as Casey watches from across the Great Lakes. Detroit may not be just Dwane’s latest second-chance coaching an NBA squad, it may be his last big chance. And we all know what happened with a Mightier Casey’s last big At Bat. Don’t get Averied!

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

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kg01
kg01

1. Cute how people suddenly chime in against Trae when he has a bad game.  Good game?  Silence.  2. Give me 1 reason Blake is still in a blowout game considering his knees are made of Graham crac

lethalweapon3
lethalweapon3

“Thank you for coaching. You get this LOVELY parting gift!”   Don’t get the Avery Johnson Treatment! The fastest coach in NBA history to notch 50, 100, and 150 wins, Avery built from hi

Lurker
Lurker

Two observations. De'Andre Hunter is going to be very good. The FG% isn't quite there right now but he's flashed exactly what I thought, the potential to have a very good FG% because of good shots tak

Spud2nique Grand Master

Spud2nique

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Nice game thread as usual lw3! Feel bad for Avery, Mark Jackson and Casey. They laid the foundation. It’s hard to not look at race sometimes which stinks.

I’m hoping if Lloyd lays our foundation like he has that they don’t replace him when it’s time to shine granted he earned it like Mark Jackson. The Mark Jackson situation was the worst. 
 

Go Hawks!

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NBASupes Grand Master

NBASupes

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This team is basura. We only got 8 keepers. We don't really have much young talent compared to the rest of the teams who are in our stage outside of our core 6 and 3 of them aren't playing tonight. We need those two 1sts in 2020. 

 

Bembry is a keeper as is Parker. Other than that, I don't care to see any of these vets ever again. 

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terrell Grand Master

terrell

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9 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

This team is basura. We only got 8 keepers. We don't really have much young talent compared to the rest of the teams who are in our stage outside of our core 6 and 3 of them aren't playing tonight. We need those two 1sts in 2020. 

 

Bembry is a keeper as is Parker. Other than that, I don't care to see any of these vets ever again. 

So did we extend Travis too soon?

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Lurker

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Two observations. De'Andre Hunter is going to be very good. The FG% isn't quite there right now but he's flashed exactly what I thought, the potential to have a very good FG% because of good shots taken.

Second, I'm not liking what Young is doing of late. Hunting assists and hoisting 3's.

Edited by Lurker
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