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It’s one game, but the Hawks appear built for offensive carnage

I cannot recall the Hawks dominating from start to finish the way they did Wednesday night in their 124-104 win over Chicago. Atlanta did not look like a team that last played a meaningful, competitive game on March 11. It looked like a team that had something to prove. Collins said, “As we showed (Wednesday), I feel like we can score with anybody in the entire league.” This is a team that’s filled with enough talent to be dangerous in the playoffs because of the offensive firepower it has.

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One of the good things new Hawk Danilo Gallinari mentioned is Trae Young’s dazzling performance in the opener. He was unreal from the start. I legitimately did not know this was possible, but he had an effective field goal percentage of 106 percent and a true shooting percentage of 104 percent in the first half … and he finished above 100 percent in both categories in the game.

Young finally has a roster that complements his game. The league will get to see what he looks like with actual NBA players instead of what he has been given to work with the past two years. There was no selfishness Wednesday. Young was running back on offense instead of looking for the ball immediately when others grabbed rebounds. Moving the ball around creates an environment where everybody knows if they do their job, they will be rewarded. There’s a level of trust that we, frankly, haven’t seen from this group the past two seasons.

tbhawksfan1 wrote:Schlenk has built an offensive juggernaut

Jamaaliver wrote:

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Jamaaliver wrote:Hawks are #1 in Offensive Efficiency today after 3 games.

The Hawks Are Trying to Shoot Their Way Into the Playoffs

Atlanta’s offseason spending spree is paying off so far. With Trae Young channeling James Harden and the supporting cast letting it fly, the Hawks are turning heads out of the gate.



It’s been a few years in the wilderness, dear friends, but the Atlanta Hawks are once again starting to play a brand of ball worthy of a gym nicknamed the Highlight Factory.

Their chosen path to the playoffs? Points, points, and more points, produced by ascendant All-Star Trae Young and enough complementary shooters and passers to stretch defenses past their breaking point.

We’re a long way from the postseason, but so far, so good. Atlanta enters Wednesday’s meeting with the Nets a perfect 3-0. Considering the Hawks didn’t win three straight games once last season, that’d be pretty cool on its own. Even better: They’re doing it thanks to a league-leading offense that is scoring a scorching 123.7 points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions, according to Cleaning the Glass.

A team that ranked dead last in the league last season in 3-point accuracy has suddenly surged into the top five.

Spoiler:

With the exception of fourth-year power forward John Collins, every member of Atlanta’s rotation is shooting better than league average from beyond the arc; that, obviously, is unsustainable. Even so, an infusion of talent like the one the Hawks secured this offseason can serve as both a floor-raiser and a force multiplier. Forcing defenses to account for multiple legitimate shooters along the arc—not just the prolific Young—creates more driving lanes, cutting angles, and playmaking opportunities. Giving those opportunities to more players who have the vision, timing, and touch to maximize them creates cleaner looks for teammates off the catch. Cleaner looks go down more often.

The Hawks haven’t undergone a wholesale strategic or schematic change; it’s not like they’re suddenly an egalitarian attack flinging the ball all over the lot to bedevil defenses. (Last season, Atlanta averaged 271 passes per game, 27th in the league. They’re up to 285 this year—more, but not a crazy amount more.) It’s just that more of the guys charged with making plays can … y’know … actually make them. That’s how you get a 10-point jump in points per game created by a direct assist—even with Young averaging fewer dimes himself.

If you take enough possessions where nobody except Young and occasionally Huerter can create a quality look, and redistribute them to lineups featuring three or more dudes capable of both making a shot and the next play, suddenly a choppy and moribund offense (Atlanta finished 26th last season in points scored per possession) can look awfully fluid—and pretty damn lethal.

At the heart of it all is Young, the third-year All-Star, who’s off to a scintillating start. He’s still draining deep pull-up triples and performing magic with a live dribble, and he’s still the Hawks’ unquestioned focal point, finishing nearly 35 percent of Atlanta possessions with a shot attempt, foul draw, or turnover. But with more dependable creators around to share the load, he has loosened his grip on the reins, averaging fewer touches, seconds and dribbles per touch, and total time of possession than he did last season. The early returns of that slight reduction in shot-jacking and possession-commandeering have been stellar: 34 points and 7.3 assists in just 31.3 minutes per game, on sparkling 53/42/91 shooting splits.

Thanks to that hot shooting, Atlanta has significantly outperformed its shot profile. The Hawks’ actual effective field goal percentage—which accounts for 3-pointers being worth more than 2-pointers—ranks third in the NBA. But according to Cleaning the Glass’s “location effective field goal percentage” metric—which looks at all of the shots a team takes and asks how efficiently its offense would operate if its players hit a league-average share of them—their expected eFG% sits right around league average. Translation: If and when the outside shooting cools down, an Atlanta offense that’s generating way more shots from beyond the arc than it is at the basket will come back to earth.

Jamaaliver wrote:

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