pingpongrac wrote:Steelo Green wrote:pingpongrac wrote:Less to do with pride and more to do with years of data I'd say. This team is pretty comparable to those 2015/16-2017/18 teams with DeRozan/Lowry in the backcourt (less shot creation, but theoretically better defence and shooting). The 2-8 start was really bad, but a lot of those were very winnable games and we're 8-5 since (.615 winning percentage, which would equate to ~50 wins in a regular season).
Even more so than us, the Hawks have benefitted from some extremely easy wins where teams are banged up or just bad. They've beat quite a few teams missing key players (Sixers missing Simmons/Harris/Curry and Clippers missing Kawhi/PG stand out the most) and they've beat both the Pistons and Wolves twice (and Wizards once). They'll fight for a playoff spot when all is said and done, but they're about to come across a brutal stretch (Mavs, Spurs, Pacers, Celtics x3, Nuggets, Heat x2) before the break.
Regarding them being better so far, they've been pretty equal despite us getting off to a brutal start while they reeled off 3 straight to open the year. And they're one game up because they beat us on a B2B.
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Do you know how many injuries the Hawks have had?
Also - records don't work like that where you look at stretches and say ignore the first 10 games, focus on the next 10, that's a 50 win team.
We are 11-13. That's it.
Records do work that way when you're looking at a small sample size over the course of a long season. We started out terribly, but we're trending in the right direction. How we have played in the last ~15 games is more of an indication of what this team is than the first 10 games where everything seemed to be going against us.
We were 99% healthy the first 10 games, but the chemistry wasn't there and we were losing a lot of very winnable games. We've dealt with quite a few injuries lately (OG has missed the last 7 games, Lowry and Siakam have both missed 3 games and Powell missed a few games), but the chemistry is there again and we've been turning things around.
I'm not saying we're going to win 50 games, though. What I'm saying is the ~60% winning rate we've been playing at lately is sustainable for the rest of the year while I think Atlanta tops out as a .500 team at best. Atlanta found themselves 8-7 after 3 straight wins against the worst teams in the league (Minnesota and Detroit) then lost 5 of 7 with their lone wins coming against a severely depleted Clippers team and another bottom feeder in Washington before beating us the other night. They have been dealing with injuries lately, but they had mostly been missing Bogdanovic (who is likely out for a lot longer still) and Gallinari (long history of injuries and is slowly working his way back). Hunter has been out lately and won't be back for a few more weeks, and Atlanta's schedule is about to get really tough. I'd be surprised if they win more than 4 or 5 games before the break in March.
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We are 6-5 in the last 11, with losses to the Atlanta team we are so much better than, a decimated Miami team, Indiana without their best player, and a Kings team which is on the rise, but again, a team everyone thinks is better than us.
We've had crazy luck with our opponents health, and even then are still below 0.500. The entire picture needs to be looked at including the strength of our opponents. That is why we are 11-13 aka a not special 8th on O, 16th on D team.
Capella is an injury you are missing, he missed a lot of time early in the year, and now he is back and playing really well. Trae, Capella, Collins, Gallo who is now back. Facing the Bucks, Lakers and a fully healthy Nets, and it was a nailbiter isn't really an indictment of a young team.
I mean, they just beat us.
I anticipate they have a similar record to us by years end. They beat up on bad teams and are bad against good ones, which is similar to us.