“YOUR Dad’s a GENIUS!”
It’s another Separation Saturday! When our Atlanta Hawks last left Auburn Hills, eight days ago, their Palace coup left the Detroit Pistons a bit embittered. Both teams have done fairly well for themselves in the days since, and each has a good reason to grab a win tonight (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Detroit) —specifically, stiff-arming the competition below them in the conference standings.
Atlanta and Detroit share the top spot among the East’s toughest remaining schedules, opponents each holding a 57% winning percentage. Seven of Detroit’s remaining nine games involve back-to-backs. The Pistons actually do pretty good with back-to-back series, as they’re an impressive 20-14 in those games. Even better, they’ve won their last six contests on the back ends of those series, and hoping to extend it to seven tonight.
The Pistons are STILL amid that nine-game homestand that began with the loss to the Hawks on March 18. And the confines have gotten quite comfy. They dusted four lotto-bound teams before fumigating the Hornets last night (62 team rebounds in regulation, a season-high). Tonight, they’re on the hunt for their first six-game winning streak since the infamous Smoove Buyout spurred Stan Van Gundy’s club to seven-straight back in December-January of last season.
After tonight, Detroit (39-34, 8th-seed in East) hosts OKC and the Mavs before finally hitting the road, for a three-game stretch that includes a miffed Bulls squad (2 games behind) and the heat. Their schedule concludes with a visit to Cleveland. Since they have a better record versus their Central Division rivals than they do against the Raptors, they might not mind bringing an extra bag to the Buckeye State in advance of a playoff series there.
In the Hawks’ case, tonight concludes the back-to-backs (22-14, 11-7 on second nights) for the season. They’ve swept their last three series and are looking to extend that string to four tonight, after starting out the year sweeping their first three.
Winning their sixth road game out of their last seven tonight should keep Atlanta (43-30, 3rd-seed in East) a half-game ahead of the Celtics, who are in Phoenix tonight awaiting a team that played yesterday, and extend their division lead over resting Miami to a full game. While two games each versus Cleveland and Toronto await, the sooner that these teams firm up their playoff positioning, the sooner they can focus on rest and recuperation ahead of the postseason.
Bang The Drummond Slowly! The last time the Hawks were here, Mike Budenholzer’s strategic fouling of the Pistons’ mammoth center was a successful exercise in torture that even some presidential candidates could admire. Dre sunk almost half of his 17 foul shots to add 8 points to his 18-and-18 evening. But more importantly, Hack-a-Dre effectively short-circuited his entire team’s momentum, the Hawks eroding Detroit’s 11-point third-quarter lead to surge ahead for good in the fourth.
“If we feel like it’s going to create an advantage,” Coach Bud said unapologetically to the postgame media, “we’ll continue to do it… (Detroit) was playing so well offensively, it’s a way to give your defense a little break and take the ball out of some other people’s hands and change the rhythm of the game.” Those “other people’s hands” rightfully belong to guys like Reggie Jackson (36.1 Assist%, 10th in NBA), who had 17 points and 10 assists without sinking a single three-pointer against the Hawks (0-for-6 3FGs on March 16).
"He drilled us in transition, the pick-and-roll game, everything that we worked on," Hornets coach Steve Clifford praised of Jackson's offense after last night's game. Still, RJax is looking to right the ship after going 0-for-5 from deep last night while getting torched from the perimeter by Charlotte's Kemba Walker (25 first-half points; 6-for-9 3FGs; 5 assists and no turnovers). Their Atlanta counterpart, Jeff Teague, had half of the Hawks’ paltry 12 player turnovers last night versus Milwaukee, and went 0-for-5 on threes, but saved his best for last with 12 of his 18 points in the closing seven minutes of the contest.
Detroit seized the frontcourt scoring edge from Charlotte thanks to 18-and-14 by Drummond (just two free throws, both missed), along with bench bigs Aron Baynes (16-and-8 in 18 minutes) and Anthony Tolliver (3-for-7 3FGs and 8 boards in 20 minutes). The Pistons will need a double-dip of that tonight from a bench corps that ranks last in the NBA with a cumulative 26.5 PPG and 41.4 FG%.
Detroit relies more than any other team on three-point bench shots (40.7% of bench FG attempts are from 3-point distance), so the Hawks perimeter defense must continue to be on point today. Conversely, despite shooting just 32.0 3FG% on the season, the 45.4 FG% by Atlanta’s bench is the best in the East. Tim Hardaway, Jr., Kris Humphries, and Dennis Schröder will continue improving Atlanta’s offensive ambrosia, particularly when Kyle Korver (0-for-4 3FGs on Friday, 1-for-3 @ DET on March 16), Teague, and the All-Star starting frontcourt are having off-nights from the field.
Detroit cooled off with 3-for-16 team shooting in the fourth quarter on Friday, as the Hornets’ reserves dwindled a 26-point mid-fourth-quarter deficit down to five with 38 seconds left to play. Similar to the situation with Atlanta’s bench scoring, in fourth-quarters, the Hawks shoot just 32.4 3FG% but their 46.4 FG% is second-best in the East, just a hair behind Miami (46.5 FG%). Detroit’s fourth-quarters haven’t been so hot (42.8 FG%, 26th in NBA). So they’re hoping once again to pounce early and hang on late, especially after SVG rested his starters in the final frame while the Hornets made their late-game charge.
The Hawks got a bit discombobulated while up nine points with 80 seconds left in the last Pistons game, making the eventual outcome, a 118-114 win, a little tighter than necessary. After Paul Millsap’s And-1 bucket gave the Hawks the final lead of the night with under four minutes to go, their final 13 points were all free throws. A Teague turnover, a few missed freebies and some defensive lapses in the closing minute allowed the Pistons to sneak back into the rearview mirror. But Jeff’s 8-for-8 fourth quarter FTs helped make Detroit’s last stand too-little-too-late.
Last night, Atlanta showed that they want to be a team that Lives by the D, not just the 3. Even with the iron unkind all night from downtown (5-for-32 3FGs), the Hawks refused to take, “Just not our night!” as an answer. They kept the Bucks few perimeter threats cool from deep (Khris Middleton and Jerryd Bayless 2-for-8 on 3FGs) and made Milwaukee earn just about every interior shot they could make.
While Milwaukee missed 23 shots in the taint, I mean paint, Atlanta’s 58-42 points-in-paint advantage made all the difference in the final score. The Hawks also helped their own cause by slowing down the Bucks’ fastbreak, building a 22-14 advantage in that category as well. The Bucks, meanwhile, didn’t help their own cause by missing nine of their 26 free throw attempts. Foreshadowing, Pistons?
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
