Its been a torrid stretch for the Atlanta Hawks and head coach Mike Budenholzer and he continues to search for answers. On Friday he went with a combination that didn't include veteran guard Lou Williams who received a DNP-CD. Following the game he talked about the reasoning with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"All year we've been working on different groups that can help us," Budenholzer said. "Lou has done a ton of good things and he has helped us through the year. Tonight, we gave some other guys some minutes and some opportunities. Playing a little bit bigger is important to us. But Lou has been very good for us all year. It's one of the hardest parts about coaching. You can't play everybody."
Shelvin Mack played 21 minutes against the Warriors and Dennis Schröder ended up with 19. The biggest beneficiary of Williams' time was Cartier Martin who logged 17 minutes. Williams played just five minutes in Wednesday's loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.
Click through to the AJC's story to read Williams' comments. Lou had a seven game streak of scoring in double figures snapped on Wednesday but has struggled at times defensively like many of his teammates. Williams currently has the fourth worst defensive rating on the team at 110.2.