Official Game Thread: Who-Dey-Hawks at Trivial-Blazers

[Atlantaholic]

2 minutes ago, mrhonline said:

Oh, I definitely agree. I was just pointing out that he's had defense on his mind for a while. Sounds like his hesitancy to trade some of the core to really improve the D may be waning.

I'm sure Schlenk has been working the speed dialer for months now but not sure what is out there that would be worth giving up one of our young pieces. And unfortunetaly with the way Gallo has played this year his trade value is probably not very high right now. 

[Peoriabird]

7 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

Trae's defense is never going to be "good" but he can be less bad. He was actually just as bad last year though when the Hawks went on a torrid run that saw  two wins away from a finals appearance. So to say we'll never win with Trae not playing good defense is almost certainly not true.  What we need is for the team defense in general to be better and for the wings to stop penetration, fight through screens.

When did I say Trae had to be good on defense??? I just said that his usage rate on offense hinders has efforts on defense.

[mrhonline]

24 minutes ago, ATLHawks3 said:

Also, Gallo needs to go. Gallo plays a really important position that is supposed to help anchor a defense, and he is suboptimal at it.

I'm wondering if Dieng and OO could play together more. If so, I think you can easily handle the drop-off from trading Gallo.

Since last season, the per possession gap between them offensively isn't as steep as I thought (and Gorgui gives you so much more defensively):

Player	From	To	G	MP	3PA	3P%	2PA	2P%	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Gorgui Dieng	2021	2022	66	827	6.4	.418	7.6	.574	5.2	.841	3.9	9.8	4.3	2.0	1.5	2.8	5.5	21.1
Danilo Gallinari	2021	2022	78	1824	9.7	.404	8.7	.446	6.1	.925	0.9	7.9	3.1	1.2	0.4	1.5	3.9	25.2

[Atlantaholic]

Just now, Peoriabird said:

When did I say Trae had to be good on defense??? I just said that his usage rate on offense hinders has efforts on defense.

Well, his usage rate needs to be high because without him we are not only terrible dfensively but equally terrible offensively. I.E. we scored 2 points in the five 4th quarter mintues he didn't play in. 

[Peoriabird]

1 minute ago, Atlantaholic said:

Well, his usage rate needs to be high because without him we are not only terrible dfensively but equally terrible offensively. I.E. we scored 2 points in the five 4th quarter mintues he didn't play in. 

Lowered usage rate doesn't equal bench him

[Atlantaholic]

Also gotta question Schlenk and the coaching on one thing. Why was Iwundu not extended? at least given just another 10 day? I'm almost 100% certain if the TLC and Lou Will minutes had been Iwundu minutes yesterday Hawks walk out with a dub.

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

That team was 10th in the league in defensive efficiency.   Not elite, but definitely not less than mediocre.

They may have ended up 10th statistically.. but they sucked on defense.. by the eye test.   Still,  Just to prove a point here... Where did we end up on the Defensive efficiency list that year??  I mean since you guys want to follow this notion out.  I'm betting it was better than 10th...  I'll wait. 

[Atlantaholic]

Just now, Peoriabird said:

Lowered usage rate doesn't equal bench him

I get it but lower usage rate means lower offensive output and I'm not sure whatever defensive improvement (if any) is worth it. Trae is the NBA's most effective and impactful offensive player this season. If you can show me any number's of any kind to support the thesis that there is some negative correlation between his offense and defense then maybe I'd be more open to the idea of getting the ball out of his hands on offense. 

[REHawksFan]

7 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Are you related to Trae or something??? When has my focus been solely on Trae Young???

 

Not at all.  I just see you continually taking shots at Trae's shooting which I find funny, especially coming off a night where he shot 68%/58%/100% and scored 56 with 14 ast.  Instead of praising his offensive output you simply came with Shooting Trae doesn't work. Hawks lost.  

The loss is all that really matters, but your takes always seem to correlate Trae's shooting with losing which is a fairly nonsensical way of looking at it. 

The Hawks lost because their defense, once again, sucked. But you didn't say that. You said, Shooting Trae doesn't work.   

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, RedDawg#8 said:

Last thing and I'm moving on:

Portland has been a bad team even with Dame playing. 13-22 coming in, 12-17 in games he played.

This was not a good team we faced AT ALL. We never should have been in a dog fight with these dudes to begin with. We made them look elite tonight when they have been anything but this season. 

Just a baaaaad loss that we NEEDED to win 

After all the fuss... 

I don't blame the hawks that much. 

It was the Spirit of Anfernee Simons' grandfather that caused us to lose this game. 

It wouldn't have mattered how many points we would have put up... we were headed for a loss because of his grandfather. 

No Joke... This was some 6th man shit.  We will be better for the rest of the trip. 

 

 

[NBASupes]

28 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

If they were two way players they would be stars. Not many of those at any position. We have the pieces to be much better defensively. Not being healthy basically the entire season and questionable effort are the huge factors here. 

Maybe not stars but teams wouldn't let them go and we wouldn't be able pick them up on the scrap heap

They are performing as expected. Delon has had more success elsewhere on offense. Our heliocentric offense is a bad fit for him

Edited January 4, 2022 by NBASupes

[REHawksFan]

6 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

I get it but lower usage rate means lower offensive output and I'm not sure whatever defensive improvement (if any) is worth it. Trae is the NBA's most effective and impactful offensive player this season. If you can show me any number's of any kind to support the thesis that there is some negative correlation between his offense and defense then maybe I'd be more open to the idea of getting the ball out of his hands on offense. 

Correct.  There's not any correlation between his offensive output and lack of defense other than the obvious, he tires out on the offensive end and rests on the defensive end.  But with Trae, even if he was 100% effort on the defensive end, it's still not raising the Hawks defensive numbers enough to offset the loss of offense he has on that end of the court.  

[kg01]

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

Maybe not stars but teams wouldn't let them go and we wouldn't be able pick them up on the scrap heap

They are performing as expected. Delon has had more success elsewhere on offense. Our heliocentric offense is a bad fit for him

That doesn't explain his brainlock when it's time to shoot.  If the ball swings to him or if he get's 'the pass', he either fumbles it away or dribbles or passes into trouble.

We may have a 'heliocentric' offense but basketball is a game that flows.  Many times the 'right' decision is fairly obvious.  He's self-checking a lot out there.

[Atlantaholic]

2 minutes ago, Diesel said:

They may have ended up 10th statistically.. but they sucked on defense.. by the eye test.   Still,  Just to prove a point here... Where did we end up on the Defensive efficiency list that year??  I mean since you guys want to follow this notion out.  I'm betting it was better than 10th...  I'll wait. 

We were 3rd in defensive rating. 27th in offensive rating (cleveland was 3rd)(. No one is saying you MUST be a top defense, but if you aren't in the top 10 you aren't winning a championship, in the last 20 years the only two teams to win a championship and be outside of the top 10 in defensive rating were the 2017-18 GSW who were 11th and the 09-10 Mavs who were 12th. Around 70% of the last 20 champs were in the top 5 in defensive rating.  

[Gray Mule]

Wright is all right and should play shooting guard or SF.  Lou's career is almost over.  Sharife Cooper is our backup PG of the future.  The sooner he gets to play this, the better we will be.

Ice cold shooting to open the game cost us dearly.  We could never overcome this.  Danilo had a terrible shooting night.  We expect more of him.  Portland backup PG shot like an all-star as he set a new career scoring record.  So did our PG.

We don't see this team very often.  Their defense is much like Atlanta's.  Explosive offense.  Bob said last night that their plan was simply to outscore any opponent.  That sure worked last night.  We all cry about the loss and the game could have gone either way.  They simply hit more shots than we did.

[Atlantaholic]

7 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Maybe not stars but teams wouldn't let them go and we wouldn't be able pick them up on the scrap heap

They are performing as expected. Delon has had more success elsewhere on offense. Our heliocentric offense is a bad fit for him

Yea, exaclty. People are throwing around Caruso as a trade target. We aren't getting him or anyone like that, not unless we offer something stupid. 

[NBASupes]

33 minutes ago, mrhonline said:

You can tell Schlenk tried to improve the bench defense in the offseason. The problem is that they're mostly one-dimensional players. 

Hill and Dieng has been as expected, Hill shot been worse tho

Delon offense been much worse than expected. 

JC been a down shift but he was a legit all star lock most of the season 

Clint massively regressed from last year 

TLC has given us more than what was expected by not much

Hunter been hurt a lot as well as Okongwu 

Kevin was on a down shift but he moved into the starting 5 and been a hit. When COVID hit, he struggled a bit but he's back and others are coming

Cam hasn't found a sweet spot yet. His production been a lot better than his impact which is opposite of last year where impact stats were more forgiving on his production wasn't there at all.

Lou and Gallo have been a lot worse than the impact stats show.

Bogi 1st half is like last year, hopefully his 2nd half is a major jump

Trae is Trae, even better offensively 

Skylar been decent for us this year. Better than Lou

2 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

Yea, exaclty. People are throwing around Caruso as a trade target. We aren't getting him or anyone like that, not unless we offer something stupid. 

Caruso struggled last year in LAs heliocentric offense.

[Diesel]

Hawks fans.... Listen to me....

This loss was not avoidable.   We are looking for people to blame... even our GM is taking the Blame...

But when you really sit back and look at it... Offensively, you couldn't have asked for more.  Offensively, we would have beaten any team last night.  Even for those who blame TLC's offense... I think he shot better than 50%.  

As a team we shot 54.5% from the field.   Do you know how awesome that is...  That's a scoring bonanza. 

For the Season.. PTL is 44.5% from the Field and 35.2% from the 3pt line.   Last night they were 52 and 43.

We blame our defense and our defense has been poor but last night was different.   We got some stops... look at the 2nd and 3rd.  Our bench scoring wasn't really a big problem.  

The problem was you had a kid out there playing on pure emotion that was backed up by a spiritual lift. 

Last night Anfernee simmons scored 43 points on better than 50% shooting and he hit 9 3pters.   This is what he said:

"“I really can’t take credit for how I played tonight... Sadly my grandpa died last night from cancer. This is all him, honestly. I give credit to him, dedicated this whole game to him.”

[Peoriabird]

8 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Not at all.  I just see you continually taking shots at Trae's shooting which I find funny, especially coming off a night where he shot 68%/58%/100% and scored 56 with 14 ast.  Instead of praising his offensive output you simply came with Shooting Trae doesn't work. Hawks lost.  

The loss is all that really matters, but your takes always seem to correlate Trae's shooting with losing which is a fairly nonsensical way of looking at it. 

The Hawks lost because their defense, once again, sucked. But you didn't say that. You said, Shooting Trae doesn't work.   

Are you being obtuse on purpose. I said that was a shot at posters who think this team can win with offense alone by having our best offensive player take all of the shots.  Well it didn't work even when he had one of him best shooting nights.  Time to come up with a new plan.  So instead of focusing on squeezing more offense out of and already great offense. Let's try something novel like trying to improve one of the league's worst defenses.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, kg01 said:

What'd he say?  I can't listen at the moment.