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We ended our first 18 games at 9-9, good for 7th in the East and 1st place is the SE. (we should be 11-7, the Cavs and Knicks losses were bad) Considering we have been playing mostly 'The Core 5' plus Capela with a little sprinkling of the offseason acquisitions it's not a bad place to be.

What I want to see for the next 25: Consistency and overall team health. I would love for us to have a game with no minutes restrictions for all those that play.

Trae: regain that floater touch, limit TOs, keep up a consistent effort on defense

Huerter: I love the 4th quarter heroics, but we need you for the 1st 3

Reddish: Slow down on offense, maintain defensive principals

Hunter/Collins/Capela: I like what they are giving us on both ends of the floor

Gallinari: Please stay healthy

Bog/Dunni: Get back soon and stay healthy

Rondo: I'm disappointed so far,

Okongwu: Needs minutes

Goodwin: Stay ready

Hill/Snell: hopefully with other guys getting healthy, they'll see less minutes

Bruno/Knight/Mays: To the GLeague


Lack of any real practice is killer for the young players, but nothing to be done. Remember Pierce said - those who can't keep up will be left behind with the shortened season and crunched schedule.

Good Stuff here!
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“I really admire what Lloyd (Pierce)’s doing,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “This is a tough matchup for us. They stretch you out. They space the floor. They put the ball in players’ hands and give them some freedom of confidence but within a structure. It’s very difficult to guard. They have a little bit of diversity in their offense. They play hard. They got length. Lloyd is a great young coach and only getting better. The Hawks are really lucky to have him.”

Irving, unprompted, said, “This is a good Hawks team, and we could have folded at any point in the fourth quarter.”

Hawks have 10 wins in 19 games. Took us 42 games last year to get 10 wins. Baby Steps!

11. Atlanta Hawks (↑Previously 15th), 10-9, +2.7 net rating

Weekly slate: Win over Clippers, Loss to Nets, Win at Wizards

First-quarter grade: B

While the Atlanta Hawks season has been a bit of a roller coaster, it feels like they’ve stabilized things enough to feel good about it overall. They got through some potential chemistry issues with the Trae Young-John Collins thing. They’ve absorbed the loss of Bogdan Bogdanovic and kept moving forward. Lloyd Pierce has this team playing defense and competing on offense. Clint Capela has been a great impact on the court. Young has infuriated much of the league with his savvy foul-drawing, and the Hawks are getting under the skin of opponents. Solid step forward so far.

Needs a makeup assignment: This team needs to be more stable on offense. Crazy to say about a top 10 offensive team, right? It’s currently held up by their free-throw rate, which is best in the league thanks to Young. The Hawks are just 24th in effective field goal percentage, though, and bottom 10 in both 2-point and 3-point percentage. Hawks need to make shots.

Why are they ranked here? Very good week for the Hawks. Beat a Clippers team without its two stars, which is what you’d expect a good team to do. Loss to the Nets was tough, but they rebounded by again beating a bad Washington team.

The Athletic