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  • Hawks at 76ers

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    lethalweapon3

    “Now, check your hand. See? Told ya, it doesn’t come off!”

     

    “Finally! The Hawks! Have come back! To Slumpbuster City!”

    Oh, but were it so easy! We have no idea whether the Atlanta Hawks have truly reached Rock Bottom, after blowing back-to-back games to the Knicks. But we’ll have a better smell of what the Hawks are cookin’ based on their performance tonight, back on the road against the newish-look Philadelphia 76ers (7:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia).

    Philly’s a .500 ballclub! At least, when you check out just their record since Christmas Day. Disregard all you recall about their record-shattering 0-18 and 1-30 starts. Ignore the 127 points hung on the Sixers during the Hawks’ wire-to-wire victory in Atlanta on December 16. That was when the Hawks needed to bust a three-game slump, turning the frown upside down by sparking a six-game win streak. That was Philadelphia’s Woe-is-Us version, before owner Josh Harris’ additions Mike D’Antoni and Jerry Colangelo were brought on to oversee The Process in the boardroom and along the bench.

    For head coach Brett Brown, the presents began unwrapping on Christmas Eve, when the Sixers “waived” goodbye to Tony “Murder Possessions, He” Wroten (3.6 TOs/game in 18.0 minutes/game), then tossed a couple of nice second-round shekels New Orleans’ way to bring back Ish Smith (who, perhaps coincidentally, wears #5). The former Demon Deacon joined the roster at the back end of last season after riding the pine with OKC, and was instrumental in Philly going 6-11 (including a 92-84 win over the half-resting Hawks here at “The Center” back on March 7) before the bottom dropped out. The 76ers were 12-43 before Smith’s arrival back in March. They’ve already quadrupled their win total in his second go-round.

    Philly could expect Smith to hit the ground running upon his return, and he hasn’t disappointed (14.7 PPG, team-high 8.2 APG and 84.2 FT%). Just as importantly, Ish has rekindled his rapport with forward Nerlens Noel (15.0 PPG, 9.2 RPG, 2.3 BPG, 72.2 FG% last six games), who up until recently had been simply going through the motions. Noel and Smith will be out hunting for those lobs that Hawks’ opponents have come to enjoy so much of late.

    Carl Landry was clearly insufficient as a veteran counterweight to rookie Jahlil Okafor’s high-wire offcourt antics. Now, with a little nudging of Sam Hinkie by Colangelo, they’ve got a respected former #1-overall pick, Rookie of the Year, and two-time All-Star on the roster. Former Hawk and 76er Elton Brand is someone who not only embraces Philly as his adopted home, but also is old enough to speak the jive common in Okafor and Kendall Marshall’s daddy’s day (Dramatization: “Chill! Nik Stauskas is the bomb-diggity! Brett Brown is all that, AND a bag of chips! Word to your mutha!”) to keep things copacetic. Brand arrives at the expense of Christian Wood, who will likely resurface with the Delaware 87ers of the D-League.

    Giving the Sixers’ ship some sense of a rudder has been enough to pull off three victories in their past six games, including two on the road (in the smoldering NBA towns of Phoenix and Sacramento) and Monday night’s 109-99 home win over Minnesota. The win over the Wolves was highlighted by Smith’s team-high 21 points (9-for-16 FGs) and 11 assists, and Landry’s breakout 8-for-11 FG mid-range shooting display.

    “That’s what we worked on!” The infusions of Smith and Brand have instantly livened up something that was anathema to at least one former Sixer superstar. “This is no 4-and-33 gym,” remarked Brown to CSN Philly after a recent practice. “It ain't even close… You look at the practice we just had and we've come off a few wins. There have been some days you say uh oh, but almost all of the times that we've spent with these guys have been pretty good despite our record. So that's not going to happen on a veteran team that's 4-and-this record. They're young, they forget quick — that's a good thing — and [Brand] looks and sees what I see. It's a highly-spirited, competitive group that are good guys and they do care and I enjoy coaching them. I like it a lot better when we're winning, but I do enjoy coaching this group.”

    Now, the Sixers will continue to lose to quality competition, as evidenced in a 31-point road-trip-concluding loss to the Blake Griffin-less Clippers last Saturday. It’s just that the quality competition has to make the effort to show up from the outset, and that’s something the Hawks (21-15, still a half-game out of first in the Southeast Division, thanks to New York winning again in Miami last night) have failed to do lately, particularly in the opening halves of games.

    A 32-22 first-quarter deficit versus the Knicks back on December 26, followed by a 31-13 second-quarter hole in Indiana, then 41-25 out the gates in Houston, a 33-24 second-quarter setback in NYC, and a 29-20 opening-quarter deficit back home against those same Knicks on Tuesday. All of it speaks to a Hawks team that is so pre-occupied by its numerous offensive doldrums that they’re neglecting defense and fundamentals, often until it’s too late to bother catching up. “We keep having mental lapses as a group,” Al Horford noted postgame on Tuesday, “forgetting assignments, little things in order to win. It’s hard, you have to be able to do these things consistently.”

     

    By the final quarter, all of Atlanta’s blown free throws, airballed/back-ironed threes, and botched point-blank baskets came home to roost, and the Hawks are too unnerved by all of that (plus the occasionally out-of-left-field referee call) to notice all of the fast-breaking wings and not-boxed-out bigs and easily-open perimeter opponents sharing the floor with them.

    Rookie Kristaps Porzingis and Lance Thomas took turns eating Paul Millsap’s lunch in the opening frame of New York’s 107-101 win in ATL on Tuesday, something Sap’s and Horford’s (game-high 9 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists in 4th quarter) second-half surge could not overcome. By the time Millsap logged a point, there were just four minutes to go in the opening half. Collectively, Noel, Robert Covington and an emergent Richaun Holmes will seek to sap ‘Sap early to keep Philadelphia phightin’ late. Millsap shot a spiffy 7-for-8 from the field, and 6-for-7 from the line, for a team-high 21 points in his last meeting with the Sixers.

    On Tuesday, the Hawks neither kept Carmelo Anthony out of the paint, nor kept Arron Afflalo from getting any shot he wanted at any range. Both Anthony and Afflalo repeatedly beat Hawks players off the dribble to earn themselves decent looks. Isaiah Canaan (a Korver-esque 11-for-46 FGs in his last five games) enjoyed a season-high 24 points (6-for-8 3FGs) in a losing cause against the Hawks last month, and is well-rested after logging just 25 minutes in his last two games (that’s a hint, Bud). A stronger defensive effort from swingmen Kent Bazemore, Kyle Korver and Thabo Sefolosha is needed to ensure Canaan’s shots are outside of the flow (such that it is) of Philadelphia’s reconfigured offense.

    This time, when the Sixers go big, Atlanta will be able to counter with reserve center Tiago Splitter, who is probable to appear after missing the past four games with calf soreness. For all his imperfections, so far this season, the Hawks are 15-8 when they can get Splitter in the mix, a winning percentage good enough for second in the East right now, an iffy 6-7 otherwise. Edy Tavares has performed ably in Splitter’s stead, but it’s important to get Tiago (4-for-5 FGs vs. PHI on Dec. 16) functioning in the Hawks rotation again.

    DeShawn Stevenson? Anthony Morrow? Anthony Tolliver? As the curtain was set to open on Larry Drew’s 2012-13 campaign, it wasn’t immediately clear who was most suitable to start at the wing for the Hawks, alongside Jeff Teague and Devin Harris. Say, LD, how about the 31-year-old guy who’s started just ten times in his previous 426 NBA games? The Threak eventually made the selection of Korver academic in hindsight. But adding to Korver’s case was his ability to contribute in ways other than jacking threes toward the goal – particularly passing, help defense, and rebounding.

    240 starts and an All-Star nod later, Korver’s long-range sharpshooting (career-low 35.4 3FG%) isn’t what it once was. That should place Korver, who started under a third of his first four-plus seasons as a 76er,  back in Morrow/Tolliver Territory: if shots aren’t falling, what else is he providing that’s a positive on the floor to justify 30-plus minutes? Are you, as a team, drawing that many defensive 3-second violations and technical fouls per night to rely on his designated free throws? On a team that relies so heavily on assisted baskets, is 2.1 APG (2.5 assists per-36, down from 2.9 and 3.1 the prior two seasons) an adequate average for the 2-guard?

    Starter or not, Kyle cannot help the Hawks with persistent binary production. One assist, zero steals or blocks versus the Knicks on Tuesday; one free throw, one steal, one O-board, no blocks two days before. Korver did contribute a season-high 7 assists (despite 4 TOs) versus the 76ers back on December 16. It’s imperative that Korver’s energy is not limited to scurrying across the floor in hopes of a mechanically-rushed jumper. On a team whose offense thrives on strips and steals and transition, one solitary steal over his past seven games (204 NBA minutes) isn’t getting the job done, never mind the 17.4 3FG% in that stretch.

    Budenholzer may be starting to crack, and tweaking the rotation to make better use of developmental wings like Justin Holiday and Tim Hardaway, Jr. While getting Dennis Schröder back into a routine is crucial, the small-ball backcourt with Jeff Teague hasn’t been an ideal substitute. In any case, while shaving down Kyle’s floortime could be beneficial, the solution isn’t to replace him, it’s to make sure that when he is on the floor, he’s focused on everything other than the next jumpshot opportunity.

    Atlanta needs to end their brief 0-for-2016 run tonight, and build positive momentum toward Saturday’s slime-fest with the Bulls. But the Hawks will be sadly mistaken if they think this is the same lackadaisical, laissez-faire Sixer bunch that rolled in-and-out of the Highlight Factory a few weeks ago. With back-to-back games upcoming during this 4-day homestand against the Cavs and Raptors, Philly has the Hawks in their sights, and has no plans to be anybody’s Slumpbuster.

    Let’s Go Hawks!

    ~lw3


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