“Schröder HAS 20 SECONDS TO SET UP THE OFFENSE, OR ELSE I WILL RELEASE THE BAZE…”
Issa Must Win! There will be plenty of days ahead to strategitank for our Atlanta Hawks, but not today! Back home at the Highlight Factory, they’ll look to raise their season win total by 50 percent tonight versus the Sacramento Kings (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, NBC Sports California).
The Kings (3-10), like the Hawks, arrive with just one road win under their belt, at Dallas last month. Sactown has the league’s worst road Net Rating of -15.8. They conclude their brief East Coast swing licking their wounds after consecutive blowout road losses, at MSG and at Washington. The stars are aligned for the Hawks, if they so choose, to get off the schneid, if only for a brief moment, and collect their first win in front of a sparse but head-nodding Philips Arena crowd.
Similar to the road-wearier Hawks (50.6 road 2FG%, 7th-lowest in NBA; 38.4 road 3FG%), the Kings are hitting three-pointers decently, but the interior offense has been a struggle (NBA-low 46.6 road 2FG%, but 38.6 road 3FG%). That they take as high a share of two-point field goals as anybody yet connect at the lowest percentage, hasn’t done much for offensive efficiency. They are leaving plenty of points on the table at the free throw line (70.4 road FT%, 28th in NBA), even though they haven’t been getting there terribly often.
Former Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger guides his team as they play with a Memphis-style tempo (95.7 pace, lowest in NBA). To help disrupt the opposing Kings offense and produce extra quality possessions for his own team, Atlanta’s Kent Bazemore (4.5 deflections per-36 and career-high 2.1 SPG, both 2nd in NBA) while be joined at times by Ersan Ilyasova, who will be brought along slowly after missing weeks with a bone bruise in his knee. With a shored-up frontline, the Hawks defense could use one more key contributor tonight.
Real Plus/Minus data has never been terribly kind to Hawks point guard Dennis Schröder. He comes into today’s action ranked 420th among 421 NBA players in Defensive RPM, as per ESPN data. The good news for The Menace, tonight, is who checks in at #421.
Rookie De’Aaron Fox has been granted ample playing time, perhaps more than was anticipated at the outset while free agent pickup George Hill (38.6 2FG%) worked through his struggles. Fox’s Lonzoian shooting splits (39.6/19.0/71.1) have been less than desirable. But both have been sound passers, neither averaging more than 2.0 TOs/game while splitting duties, keeping the Kings on solid ground in the area of transition defense (14.8 opponent points-per-48 off TOs, 4th-best in NBA).
Young Dennis, why you trappin’ so hard? Atlanta (2-12) will need Schröder and the wing defenders to harass the primary ballhandlers and force the ball early in shot-clocks into the hands of teammates like former Grizzly great and leading scorer (!!!) Zach Randolph (12.7 PPG, 8-for-18 3FGs), or shooters like Buddy Hield (39.3 3FG%) or Garrett Temple (42.3 3FG%) who don’t fare as well when they must put the ball on the floor.
Willie Cauley-Stein says, of guarding Kristaps Porzingis after the 118-91 loss to the Knicks, “I have the same body size, the same skill-level.” I may have the same crooked big toe as The Unicorn, but sadly that similarity doesn’t, in and of itself, translate into NBA superstar competency. “I think I gotta get more selfish,” says Cauley-Stein (2.1 APG, tops among the Kings’ non-point guards), which is probably not the best tack to take.
Perhaps struggling with some early Stromile Swift Syndrome, the 2015 lottery pick has struggled to stand out in a log-jam by design. Joerger assigns ten Kings between 19 and 27 minutes each, shuffling veteran plodders like Z-Bo and Kosta Koufos with lighter fare, like second-year pro Skal Labissiere.
After wrangling with the likes of Andre Drummond, DeMarcus Cousins and Marcin Gortat in recent days, Dewayne Dedmon (13 minutes in the Hawks’ 106-105 loss @ NOP, 5-for-5 FGs) and rookie John Collins (16.5 O-Reb%, 4th in NBA) should be able to find amenable matchups that keep them on the court for longer, more positively impactful tenures. Sacramento 15.2 opponent second-chance points per-48 is the highest in the league, while their 73.7 D-Reb% ranks next-to-last.
There should be enough options available for Schröder to make connections all across the floor, and not be satisfied with being funneled into fruitless straight-line drives, as was too often the case in recent losses (last 2 games: 7-for-34 FGs, 5.0 APG, 4.0 TOs/game). Schröder has to show that between he and Fox, when matched up, Dennis is the superior defensive player, and not just by default. As most Californians would agree, 420 > 421, always.
Some fans, dreaming of future tie-breaker possibilities, want the Hawks to drop early games to similarly downtrodden competition like the Kings. But with 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 M’s in their respective bank accounts, this is one game where Hawks players should want to be stuntin’ and flexin’ their muscles, and reppin’ the ATL well. As the Hawks have been the most accurate three-point-shooting squad (41.4 3FG%, better than Golden State’s 41.2%) over the past ten games, how many Atlanta jump shooters will be at the ready to gun these Kings down?
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
