“This is what it sounds like… when Ducks fly!”
Two water-treading division rivals, the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Hornets, tip-off tonight at Spectrum Center (7:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast; 92.9 FM in ATL), and only one burning question remains. Does Purple Shirt Guy have anybody left worth heckling?
You all remember the Hornets, right? It’s been a minute. Back in mid-November, the Hawks were cruising right along at 9-2 to start the year and, thanks to some Paul Millsap baskets, spread their lead to ten points on the host Hornets, on the verge of putting Charlotte in their rearview mirror in the race for the Southeast Division lead.
Then Cody Zeller smartly sold a high Dwight Howard elbow, leading to a premature exit for Atlanta’s center. Kent Bazemore and then the whole Hawks team started Bazemoring on offense. And, suddenly, no Hawk defenders could plug the leak around the rim, much to the joy of Hornets star guard Kemba Walker.
While their fourth-quarter lead in Charlotte wasn’t definitively the high-water-mark of the beleaguered Hawks’ season, it’s clear that whatever mojo Atlanta (37-32; 5-9 last 14 games) had at the point When Elbow Met Cody, it was never fully regained.
That fact was reflected well during Saturday night’s 113-97 washout against visiting Portland. The Hawks were doing their itsy-bitsy-spider thing in the third quarter, trying to mask the stink of yet another embarrassing first-quarter start, this one 40-18 against the Blazers (props to the fine folks at Dad’s Garage for the improv lulz, btw).
Unfortunately, center Jusuf Nurkic did his homework, film-studying Howard’s historical histrionics and the tried-and-true antics of referee Marc Davis (side Q: was the ref ever reprimanded for cussing at the hawks’ bench back in January?). Davis T’d up Dwight for essentially air-traffic-controlling in the vicinity of Nurkic’s schnoz during a rebound attempt.
Howard can rant and fume all he likes, but his team will remain behind the 8-ball until he, Dennis Schröder (2-for-14 FGs, minus-25 plus/minus vs. POR), and coach Mike Budenholzer figure out how to avoid getting picked-apart-and-steamrolled by guards executing pick-and-roll plays. Atlanta’s opponents have a 49.6 eFG% on P&R ballhandler plays (3rd-highest in NBA; good news? Only the Cavs and Raps do worse), as per NBA.com stats. Howard sags as the trailing defensive guard goes over screens, creating a nice little bubble for opposing guards to work with.
The issue becomes all the more pressing with the Hawks down two starters in the foreseeable future, Bazemore (knee bone bruise) and All-Star Millsap (knee tightness), plus a third starter in Thabo Sefolosha (0-for-6 FGs in 19 minutes) who seems as lost in the sauce as anybody else. The Hawks will have plenty of practice covering P&R tonight against Walker, who leads the NBA with 12.5 possessions per game, his 11.8 PPG second only to Harden on these plays.
Despite all the losing and injuries and listless play, the silver lining is that it will take a flop of Falconian proportions for the Hawks to find themselves not only behind the 8-ball, but the 8-seed as well. Aside from, arguably, the heat and the Bucks, the entire Eastern Conference has been slipping around in oil, unable to gain traction as the postseason nears.
It’s not just the bottom half of the East, either. Since the All-Star Break, the Cavs have struggled defensively. The Raps have had a hard time finding their bearings without Lowry; same for the Celts without Thomas. And just when you think the Wizards finally have their stuff together, they drop three of four, including a 98-93 loss on the road to these Hornets last Saturday.
Zeller (8-for-10 FGs, 4 steals vs. WAS), who has enjoyed a career season, and Marvin Williams, who has very much not, carried the day as the Hornets made things tough for John Wall (5-for-16 FGs) around the rim and held Washington to 5-for-20 3FGs through the first three quarters.
Hornets coach Steve Clifford can only hope that the return of Nicolas Batum (migraines) to the starting lineup, plus an uptick from Marvin (last 10 games: 14.1 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 52.6 FG%, 86.7 FT%, 2.7 APG, 0.8 TOs per game) and the addition of hungry G-League talents Briante Weber and Johnny O’Bryant, will help stabilize his rotations for a final playoff push. Still, Clifford surely believes that the sins of the managerial staff are being visited upon the coach.
Let’s not forget that Charlotte finished with 48 wins last season, just like Atlanta. If not for Purple Shirt Guy’s incessant lip, it stands to reason the Hornets would have joined the Hawks in the East’s second round.
But then the summer came, and the team allowed free agents Courtney Lee, Jeremy Lin and Al Jefferson to walk. Replacing the guards with Ramon Sessions (out since early February, meniscus tear), Brian Roberts and Marco Belinelli, predictably, hasn’t panned out. Parting ways with Jefferson and then extending and promoting Zeller were logical moves. But no one should have surmised that replacing Jefferson with the even less useful Roy Hibbert, since shipped to Milwaukee with Spencer Hawes for the ghost of Miles Plumlee, was ever going to work.
Charlotte enjoyed the strong All-Star-caliber start to the season by Walker (career-highs of 22.8 PPG, 40.1 3FG%, 84.9 FT%), and the emergence of Zeller (career-high 10.5 PPG, 57.3 2FG%, 6.6 RPG; season-high 23 points, 9-for-10 FGs vs. ATL on Nov. 18) as one of the East’s most efficient pivot men (+7.3 net rating, best among East starting centers).
But the lack of reliable depth and the shooting struggles (49.8 eFG%, 24th in NBA) among the wings and forwards have conspired to derail Charlotte’s march toward respectability. Most emblematic of the Hornets’ problems has been second-year forward Frank Kaminsky, who has a nickname that parallels the interests of some Hornets fans plus the game to match it (39.8 FG%, 31.3 3FG%).
The mirror-image of the Hawks’ season, Charlotte (30-39; 1-3 last 4 games) has outscored their competition by 37 points over the course of the season, but are mired with a losing record, 3.5 games behind the 8-seed Pistons with 15 games remaining. The buzzkill really kicked in when Zeller exited with a thigh injury in late January, causing Charlotte to collapse like an ACC team in the third round. The Hornets went through a full month with just one game (1-13) in the win column (a four-point home win over the Nets).
As for the Hawks, Ersan Ilyasova (team-high 23 points vs. POR on Saturday) and Junior Hardaway (21-game Threak; 22 points, 8-for-9 FTs vs. POR) have moved up to the top line, in Bazemore and Millsap’s absence. For the Hawks to pull off any victories while Baze and Sap are out, Coach Bud has little choice but to lean on his rookie corps to produce. That includes not only Taurean Prince and Malcolm Delaney, the latter in for defensive purposes when needed ahead of Jose Calderon, but also DeAndre’ Bembry, who returns from his G-League stint in Salt Lake City.
Fumigating the Hornets today involves not only finding some offensive punch off the bench, but Schröder making wise decisions at both ends versus a Hornets team, led by Walker, that doesn’t willingly turn the ball over (10.9 TO%, 2nd-lowest in NBA) and doesn’t allow unwise trips to the foul line (NBA-low 17.0 personal fouls and 18.8 opponent FTAs per game).
As was the case for All-Star Wall here over the weekend, Dennis will need to have productive shooters on the floor if he hopes to find any daylight on drives toward the rim. Charlotte allows just 58.7 FG% in the restricted area, third-lowest in the East behind the heat and Hawks (57.4 opponent FG%).
Kaminsky possesses at least one thing Atlanta doesn’t have. The Hawks haven’t interested NBA fans enough to send out any of those inspirational potatoes that are all the rage these days. Atlanta’s starters and bench players alike have to step up, overcome adversity and prevail soon, preferably beginning tonight, if they ever hope to go from duds to spuds.
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
