Moderators: dms269, HMFFL, Jamaaliver
Jamaaliver wrote:I definitely fall into the former camp.
Find the open space within your shooting range and load up from there. Whether it's 15 feet or 25 feet.
Modern shot profile be damned when we're a bottom 5 offense 3 years in a row...Spoiler:
macd-gm wrote:From a watchability stand point i agree with you. From a success stand point i don't know. Taking this approach only works if you can effectively defend the 3 point line or the other team is cold from 3.
Jamaaliver wrote:
Pierce marked Jan. 14 as the day turnovers became a point of emphasis to better the team’s offensive efficiency.
“We are going to pay a lot of attention to that area,” Pierce said.
Peachtree HoopsThe Atlanta Hawks have a turnover problem and it’s not going away
The Hawks give the ball away... a lot
Anybody who has watched the Atlanta Hawks this season knows that their biggest offensive problem has been turnovers. They’ve played exactly one game in which they committed single-digit turnovers, and they’ve played 16 games with at least 20 turnovers, more than twice as many as the next worst team.
The turnover problem for the Hawks isn’t just bad. It’s not just the worst in the league. We’re witnessing historically poor ball security from these Hawks. Of the 450 team seasons in the last 15 years, Atlanta’s 18.3 percent turnover rate is fourth-worst, passed only by the 2014-15 Philadelphia 76ers (18.4 percent), 2006-07 Orlando Magic (18.8 percent), and the 2005-06 New York Knicks (19.0 percent).
The Hawks aren’t just historically bad in a vacuum, they’re even worse when compared to average this season, as turnovers are the second-lowest they’ve been since 2004.
The Hawks have one of the best shot profiles in the league, with 42 percent of their shots coming at the rim (the second-most in the league), and another 10 percent coming from the corners (third-most). They take the third-fewest mid-range shots, trailing only Milwaukee and Houston in that particular statistic. However, attempting these higher-efficiency shots has come at the cost of an increased turnover rate, as teams are more locked in on stopping those specific shots from occurring at all. This doesn’t entirely explain their historically bad turnover rate, but it at least gives a backdrop as to how hunting those shots does have a negative effect on a team’s turnover rate.
Combine a specific mandate from the coaching staff to shoot almost nothing but threes and layups and a team full of inexperienced ball handlers and you have a recipe for turnover disaster. Atlanta’s turnover problem is massive and is holding them back from making the next step (even amid improved overall play) in terms of offensive output, but there’s a method to Pierce’s madness.
NBA.comAtlanta’s shot profile
The Hawks almost exclusively take shots in the paint and beyond the arc. Their 5.2% midrange shot attempt percentage ranks third in the NBA behind the Rockets and Bucks, while 38.7% of their shots come from beyond the arc, seventh in the league. Kevin Huerter, Dewayne Dedmon, Vince Carter, John Collins, and Taurean Prince are all shooting 36.0% from deep or better this season, and Trae Young is making 35.6% of his triples in his last 15 games. Atlanta can get hot at any moment, and their league-best 104.98 pace gives them more possessions per game than any other team in the NBA.
Bleacher ReportHawks Getting What They Envisioned with Three-Point Barrage
After drafting Trae Young and Kevin Huerter, the Hawks apparently pictured themselves as the Warriors of the East.
Things hadn't been quite as smooth for most of the year, with the three-point shooting especially disappointing as Young struggled with his consistency from deep. The team entered the day ranked just 23rd in the league at 34.6 percent from beyond the arc.
However, the Hawks have been turning it around in recent games.
Atlanta had made at least 13 three-pointers at more than a 40 percent rate in each of the past five games. That carried over into Tuesday, with the team tying a franchise record with 10 deep balls in the first quarter:
The squad slowed down after that but still finished 16-of-42 from three-point range. This is exactly what Atlanta was built for.
Meanwhile, the key young players are more than living up to expectations with their recent play.
Young made a major impact against the Lakers with 22 points and 14 assists, while Collins remains a matchup nightmare.
In a team session late in November, Lloyd Pierce unleashed the hounds.
"We need to pick it up," Pierce told his team.
At that point in the season, the Hawks had done little on the offensive glass relative to other NBA teams. With an offensive rebounding percentage hovering around 24 percent, the Hawks ranked 27th among the 30 NBA teams at that moment.
"He said that we need to put up more of a fight," center Alex Len said. "Before that (meeting), our focus was on getting back and setting up our defense."
While setting up the defense is still a priority for the perimeter players, the interior players have been freed to take their shots at hunting offensive rebounds. It also helped that their best offensive rebounder from the previous season, John Collins, got healthy and rejoined the starting lineup around the same time.
What has happened since then is nothing short of a revelation. Collins has averaged 3.5 offensive rebounds per game, a top-10 mark in the NBA.
The result? The Hawks have been the top offensive rebounding team in the league since Dec. 1, rebounding 32 percent of their own misses.
As promising as Trae Young has looked, power forward John Collins might be the biggest revelation for the Hawks this season. Collins' 3-point accuracy is inching toward 37 percent, and his true shooting percentage now tops 63 percent. Next item on the agenda for Collins: refining the pick-and-roll routine with Young. They are the eighth-most-used combo in the league but the least efficient among the top 10 -- though that's still respectable and something that is certain to improve with time. -- Arnovitz
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