Have rivals figured out Hawks' offense?

[Jamaaliver]

The Hawks currently sit at about 102.8 points per 100 possessions. This is comparable to that 2014 Hawks team that lost Horford early in the season and lost 44 games. It's also comparable to the last two years under Larry Drew.

AJCs Chris Vivlamore ponders this question:

What happened to the Hawks, you ask?

After a 60-win season and a berth in the 2015 Eastern Conference finals, Atlanta has followed that historic campaign with maddening inconsistency that has coaches, players and fans scratching their heads in search for the answer.


The problem, one the Hawks are still trying to solve, began in the playoffs last season. Opposing teams adjusted to their pace-and-space offense. It was evident in the top-seeded Hawks’ hard-fought series wins over the Nets and Wizards before being swept by the Cavaliers in the finals.

“I think last year we were kind of new,” guard Kyle Korver said. “The Spurs had (run this offense) but, especially in the Eastern Conference, it was kind of fresh. It kind of took you by surprise, especially in the beginning once we started figuring it out and it really clicked for us.

“But this is the NBA and people figure stuff out. When we got to the playoffs, teams had already made the adjustments. In the playoffs, we played with teams making the adjustments. We still won some games. We didn’t play our best. Teams saw what happened to us in the playoffs and they’ve been doing the same thing this year, taking certain things away, making us settle for certain shots."

Budenholzer has repeatedly said that the defense has trended in the right direction. If the offense is to improve, the Hawks need to learn how to counter-punch.

“The 3-point shot is something we believe in strongly,” said Budenholzer, who added he has not considered changes to his lineup to address the offensive woes. “We believe in our players. I think if we continue to move the ball and screen and play with pace and we are getting good open 3’s, that’s something we believe in and we want to continue to do.

“If we start making them at a better percentage and are more efficient offensively, then everything is going to look and feel different.

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Have we lost any faith in this offense being capable to lead us to true, contender status?
Is Bud too darn committed to three-point shooting at the expense of inside play?

Is this offensive decline due primarily to opponents figuring out our offense?
Does the coaching staff bear most of the blame for not properly adjusting the offense after being stymied in the playoffs?

Is it due moreso to a decline by our players?
Does the front office bear most of the blame for not properly improving the personnel on the team?

Question?
Concerns?
Predictions?

[Jamaaliver]

Mike Cunningham of the AJC mentioned earlier this week that Hawks offensive issues seem to stem from the Hawks simply missing open shots at a rate higher than anticipated:

The unsatisfying-but-unavoidable truth about the Hawks’ loss to the Cavs in the 2015 Eastern Conference finals was that they just missed a lot of open shots. They had about the same frequency of open shots during the postseason as they did during the regular season but they just barely made enough of them to get by the Nets and Wizards and didn’t make enough of them against the Cavs.

“Those numbers have been the hardest thing for me,” Budenholzer said. “I want to be critical of us, but it’s not very critical to say, ‘We’re just not making open shots.’ We did get good looks, but maybe there were red flags there. We have to look at everything.”

{This season} the Hawks are getting a higher frequency of “wide open” looks than last season but they’ve had a drastic 5.6 decrease in eFG on those attempts. The 2.8 percent drop in effective field-goal percentage on “open” or “wide open” shots is significant for a jump-shooting, space-and-pace team. The Hawks are playing at a faster pace than last season (96.8 vs. 93.9) and they seem to be creating space, but they just aren’t making shots.

MC's solutions to improving the offense:

1. They can hope Kyle Korver will start making more open shots.
2. The Hawks also could abandon their attempts to make Al Horford a 3-point shooter.
3. Maybe more shots for Kent Bazemore
4. Perhaps more minutes for Mike Scott
5. Better health and/or focus for Jeff Teague
6. Or some rapid growth for Dennis Schroeder?

[Jamaaliver]

We touched on potential ways teams could stymie our offense around this time last year. And how our offense was created in response to Thibs-style defenses of the last decade.

My take on this...it's all flaws in personnel and strategy. We run an offense predicated on jump shooting. But our team doesn't really feature above average jump shooters anymore. KK has regressed. Bazemore is good at open, set 3-pointers. That's largely it.

We don't feature effective slashers. We don't feature big men with strong post games. And even Horford, who's been one of the best mid-range shooters over the course of his career, has seen his offense shifted from that strong suit out to three-point range. Where he is adequate at best.

We are tough to beat when we are hitting our three pointers. But when we're not...we struggle to keep up with other teams. That's too easy to defend.

We have to diversify the skillset of the wing players, implement a post game into the offense and get guys to focus MORE on their strengths than simply getting a team chock full of three point shooters.

I'd also like to see us allow the bigs to attack the offensive glass to help get easy buckets in tight games.

But, we need a SF or SG to emerge as an offensive threat as more than just a 3-pt shooter. We gotta get someone capable of creating his own shot, getting into the lane, drawing fouls. And it can't ONLY be the point guards doing so.

Last year's playoffs showed us just how susceptible we can be when wholly dependent on the PG position to create offense.

We don't have the overall talent of a GS to devote ourselves to sticking this route. I also believe we're mis-using the talents we do have.

[ATL Boy]

I disagree that the main reason for our struggles is that our opponents have "figured us out." I don't think it's in the nature of the read and react offense to be "figured out." Not when it's being played the right way.

What has really done us in is our consistent misses on open jumpshots. Nobody got more "open" jump shot looks this past month (open meaning the nearest defender is at least 6 feet away) than the Hawks. The problem is that we hit less than 40% of those shots.

Same thing in the playoffs. I remember us just clanking open shot after open shot.

The offense is just fine. The ball movement has gotten us open shots, now it's just up to the guys to hit those shots. Them hitting those shots at an abnormally high rate is what got us to that 40-8 start last year.


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[Jamaaliver]

The Hawks, and fans, have been frustrated at times this season. The success of last season’s 60-win campaign have not been duplicated. An inconsistent offense has been the main culprit and the reason for the troubles have been several. Players have said that the Hawks are not sneaking up on anybody this season. Al Horford reiterated the point.

“It’s just been different for us because, I feel like, teams really know what we’re trying to do,” Horford said Tuesday. “Last year, we caught a lot of teams off guard. For us this year, it’s been trying to make adjustments offensively, trying to figure out how we can score the ball."

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[HMFFL]

As far as the subject question goes, I believe most teams have figured out everybody's offense, but stopping it is an entirely different thing. Our offense doesn't appear to be overly complicated to figure out but we're playing as a team our rivals will have a difficult time stopping us.
Like Al mentioned in the quote that you posted Jamaaliver; scoring the ball appears to be our biggest issue on offense, the looks are there, but actually making our shots seems to be a problem compared to last season.

[jayu70]

Part of the problem is the starting lineup working Bazemore in. With Carroll he knew what to do and where to be, with Baze they never know what he's going to do.

[Jamaaliver]

Korver references the offenses adjustments Hawks have made as teams become more accustomed to defending them:

...We’ve had to adjust our offense a little bit as teams have adjusted to us. It takes time. Luckily, our defense has been there for the last couple months. It’s been really good and it’s allowing us to find ourselves on the offensive end. I think we are finding new ways to get different guys the ball in new spots and we’re starting to play at the right level and things are starting to click at the right time.”

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