FanPost

The Northcyde Narrative: Vol. 4 - Atlanta SOFT

The Atlanta Hawks currently have a 5 - 5 record going into their Friday night game vs the Detroit Pistons. This shouldn't be a shock to anyone, seeing that the schedule so far has been littered with a mix of playoff level and sub par teams. The 5 - 5 record still has us right in the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference. And holding serve during these next few home games could even vault the Hawks to the top of the Southeast Division by the end of the month.

So what is the problem? Why do Hawks fans seem so uncertain about this team?

I think fans are starting to see a trend developing with this team, that they're just not battling hard enough to win or pull out games. Up until the embarrassing loss to the then 1 - 9 Los Angeles Lakers, Hawks fans could literally say that the team was a few plays away from pulling out victories versus the Toronto Raptors, San Antonio Spurs, and Charlotte Hornets. And while the Cleveland game was a blowout, Hawks fans could chalk it up to just one of those aberrations that happens to a team during a long NBA season. The loss to the lowly Los Angeles Lakers, however, changed the narrative about this team.

The problem with the Hawks, is that they're a SOFT TEAM.

I don't think people can call this team "mentally soft", because they have shown the ability to fight back in games in which they fall behind in. You can't do that unless you have some mental toughness about you. But despite the mental toughness of the team, where the Hawks fall short at, is in PHYSICAL TOUGHNESS. I'll cite a few things that are indications as to why the Hawks are simply a SOFT team.

The Rebounding Issues

The Hawks currently are the worst rebounding team in the NBA. Dead last folks. This wouldn't be a major issue if the Hawks were a top 5 offensive team. Unfortunately, they can't make that claim. They currently sit at 29th in total offensive rebounding and 30th in total defensive rebounding. A better way to look at rebounding, would be to view the Offensive and Defensive Rebound percentage rates, which is a more fair way to see potential rebounding issues. When looking at these advanced metrics, the Hawks rank 25th in Offensive Rebound percentage and 23rd in Defensive Rebound percentage.

While there are various playoff level teams that may have worse Offensive or Defensive Rebound percentage rates, the only team that ranks 23rd and below in both Offensive and Defensive Rebound percentage rates . . is our Atlanta Hawks. THAT is a problem folks. A huge problem.

Mike Budenholzer cited early in the season that the guards must rebound, especially on the defensive end, for the Hawks to be successful. But is the rebounding from the guards the real problem with the Hawks?

At 10.2 rebounds per game the rebounding from the Hawks backcourt ranks 18th in the NBA. Kyle Korver does his job from a rebounding standpoint at the SG position. At 4.1 per game, Korver ranks 13th among SG's. Jeff Teague is a different story. At a paltry 1.8 rebounds per game, Teague ranks tied for 43rd in rebounding, despite playing over 32 minutes a game. The truly disturbing thing about this, is that backup PG Dennis Schroder grabs 1.9 rebounds in only about 17 minutes of play.

Hawks fans routinely complain about Teague's aggressiveness on offense. But maybe one of the bigger issues with him, is his aggressiveness PERIOD out on the court, in all aspects of his game. And his lack of aggressiveness, or unwillingness to mix it up a little, really shows when it comes to rebounding.

But he, nor the rebounding from the backcourt, are the issue.

At 28.8 rebounds per game the Hawks frontcourt is tied for 26th in rebounding in the NBA. Paul Millsap ranks 8th among PF's in rebounding, grabbing 8 boards a game. This would be great, if he wasn't the leading rebounder on the Hawks. It's an indication though, that Millsap isn't one of the reasons why the Hawks frontcourt is weak on the board. I will say this about Millsap though. He sometimes has inexcusable lapses with not knowing where an offensive guy is to box out, leading to easy offensive rebounds for the opponent.

But a large part of the reason for the poor frontcourt rebounding, unfortunately, has to be placed upon the Captain of the Hawks, Al Horford.

At 6.8 rebounds a game, Horford ranks 25th among centers in rebounding. And on a team struggling to rebound the basketball, this is not good at all. Horford will cite that he isn't 100%. And the fact that he's playing less than 30 minutes a game is an indication of this. Even with that, there are troubling signs that indicate that Horford simply isn't battling hard enough to go after rebounds.

When you watch clips of the Hawks when they give up offensive rebounds, it's Horford who is routinely out of position, or is simply not putting a body on somebody, in order to have a good opportunity to grab a rebound. Most of the time though, his guy is simply outworking him in order to get that rebound. This hasn't been a major problem for Horford during most of his career. And while he may not be 100%, he's good enough to go every night. And if he can go every night, he simply has to battle hard in the minutes he's in the game.

Rebounding from the SF position has been more than solid. Demarre Carroll and Thabo Sefolosha have both rebounded the ball well, ranking 7th and 20th respectively among all SF's in the NBA. Rebounding from the backup bigs ( Mike Scott and Pero Antic ) has been sub par, to say the least.

Fighting on Defense

The Hawks are a frontrunning team. When things are going good, especially on offense, they will look like world beaters. When a game gets tough, and they have to dig down deep to get a stop, they have shown an inability to not get the big stop to win a game. And if they do get a stop, an offensive rebound will end up killing them. The Hawks simply have to WANT to get that rebound, or play great defense, in order to win games. They have to exert the effort and desire to do this on a nightly basis, especially against quality opponents.

This past offseason was used to shore up the defense. To his credit, Thabo Sefolosha has been pretty good with his on the ball defense, when not facing a superstar scorer. He's not a lockdown defender, but he does give the type of effort you want to see in a player, to disrupt the flow of the game. Demarre Carroll has also been solid in this area. And young Dennis Schroder has shown flashes of being a good on ball defender.

The problem with the Hawks though overall on the perimeter, is with their closeouts on shooters, and fighting through screens. When you are an undersized team like the Hawks, being able to recover and close out on shooters is a necessity. Otherwise, teams can shoot right over top of you and get good looks at the basket.

And the midrange defense by the bigs has been poor at best. It's completely unfair to the team to expect them to stop a Kobe Bryant or a Lebron James. But when guys like Carlos Boozer and Amir Johnson are going off on you, that may cause the Hawks to lose games.

Lack of Size & Roster Construction

When you talk about the rebounding, and the lack of fight on defense at times, it goes back to two main issues. The lack of size at certain positions, and the way the roster was constructed in the first place.

This team was built to score the basketball. With all of the problems this frontline has in rebounding, scoring the basketball isn't one of them. They rank 7th in the league in frontcourt scoring, scoring 60.4 points per game. But when you're giving up 62.7 points to your opponent on the frontcourt, that's a problem. The Hawks don't have a rim protector on the frontline, nor do they have a lot of length there. At 6 - 10, Horford is undersized, from a defensive standpoint, at center. The same goes for the 6 - 8 Millsap at the PF spot. The other element at play with these two, is that they're good athletes, but not elite level athletes. So they have to be fundamentally sound at all times, in order to get the job done. It also doesn't help that Mike Scott is a score first player. Pero Antic is a solid individual post defender, but lacks the athleticism to battle people on the boards on a nightly basis.

Most of our guards are on the small side in size and strength. Teague and Schroder are lighting quick on the offensive end, but lack the strength ( and the willingness ) to battle through screens on the defensive end. Even Mack, at 6 - 3, is asked to play more of the combo guard role, which routinely has him matched up versus bigger guards at the 2 spot. And we ask our big guards ( Sefolosha and Bazemore . . who are 6 - 5 ) to play a combination of the 2 and the 3, when paired up with other bench guys.

Recipe for Softness

When it's all said and done, the Hawks are simply a soft basketball team. They love to score and run offense, but don't have the grit and determination to be a top notch defensive unit. And when you're undersized from the jump, it makes it that much more difficult to beat bigger teams that may have just as much, if not more athleticism than they do. As long as they're making shots, everything is good. If they're not, the questions are can they grind out games and do the difficult things on defense to pull out the victory?

Detroit should present an interesting test for this group tonight. Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe are guys who live off the offensive boards ( due to all of the missed jumpshots by the Pistons ). They're also guys who are pretty good on the defensive boards. This shouldn't matter for the Hawks, because Atlanta is the superior team in this matchup. Detroit is one of the worst offensive teams in the league, and should struggle to break 90 points vs the Hawks.

But if the Hawks lose the game, these same themes of softness will probably be the reason why they lost to a lesser opponent once again. And until they overcome their softness issues, fans really can't expect them to be no more than a .500 team.

A FanPost expresses the opinion of the community member who wrote it and not that of the blog management.