“Serenity now… serenity now…”
It’s Demotivational Week for the Atlanta Hawks! Over the next eight days, the Hawks can help put as many as four Eastern Conference wannabe contenders out to pasture. A home-and-home that begins at Philips Arena against the Washington Wizards (8:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, CSN Mid-Atlantic) initiates this stretch.
To be sure, the postseason isn’t tied down yet for the Hawks (41-29), who will take a stab at six straight victories tonight. But in far more precarious situations are the Wizards, the Bucks, the Pistons, and the Bulls, all teams on the horizon in Atlanta’s schedule, all teams vying for what’s likely to be one of the final three playoff spots.
While the notion of, “If only we could get in the playoffs,” is a tad played out in the minds of Hawks fans as their team marches toward their ninth consecutive trip, for their upcoming opponents, It’s Still Real to Them, Dammit.
Chicago missing out would end a run of seven straight and likely kickstart a sorely needed shakeup in the management department. Detroit would be sitting it out for seven straight years, certainly a disappointment after having made moves strategically designed to snap the string. Milwaukee is just about out of it, but a last dash might re-energize a team that has moved in fits and starts, after surprising last season and making a big free agency swing last summer.
As for the team up in the District of Columbia? They’ve won four in a row, including defeats of the Pistons and Bulls at home, one of two four-game win streaks that sandwiched a five-game skid. Despite allowing the most points per game of any of the East’s potential playoff teams, the Wizards have held opponents below 100 points in four straight games for the first time all season.
Still, not all is sweet in Chocolate City. After swinging for the fences to get their hands on the Suns’ mischievous Markieff Morris at the Trade Deadline, finishing the season below the 8-seed spot is not likely to salvage the jerbs or either GM Ernie Grunfeld or head coach Randy Wittman. As of today, they’re 1.5 games behind those Pistons and Bulls for the final slot.
You wanna see Kevin Durant in a Hawks uniform? Well, failing that, how’d you like to see him in a Wizards jersey? To hear anyone in our Nation’s Capitol tell it, getting John Wall and the Wizards into the postseason party has been nice, but in reality, the past couple seasons have merely been one giant postcard for the Durantula: “Wish You Were Here!”
The D.C. native might not find palatable an NBA team that seems to be regressing and unstable, and a loss tonight would match the 36 losses from last year’s edition of the Wizards. Atlanta likely dodged a bullet (or, if you prefer, a wizard) when the clingy Dwight Howard looked elsewhere during his free agency period, and they can do their part this week to cure KD of any homesickness.
Meanwhile, Bradley Beal should be available in Animal Style, he’s In-n-Out so often. The Wizards’ star shooting guard has 44 appearances and 24 starts out of 69 games this season, thanks in part to shoulder and leg injuries and a concussion. He was only recently eased back into the starting lineup, but missed four of the last seven games after spraining his pelvis against the Pacers and ruining any shot at starring in a remake of ¡Three Amigos!
Still, Beal (career-high 17.6 PPG) is shooting a career-best 48.4 2FG% and, after a February swoon, his three-point shooting is coming around (45.8 March 3FG%). The Wizards sound committed to keeping him during restricted free agency this summer, whether the Slim Reaper joins them or not, so you can expect Beal to scour the market for max deals that the Wizards might have to match.
It’s probable that the Wiz will not be able to improve themselves via the draft, barring trade-offs of key assets. Their 2016 first round pick is Top-9 protected and eventually headed to Phoenix, courtesy of the deal for Keef. Their second-rounder heads to the second-round-pick-hungry Hawks, and can get juicier for Atlanta with each Wizards loss.
That pick arrived as part of a three-way 2015 Draft Night deal that sent rookie Kelly Oubre, Jr., to Washington, and the Knicks’ score-and-not-much-more guard Tim Hardaway, Jr., to the ATL. How is that deal looking right now? It’s safe to say that Oubre (10.5 minutes per game, 41.2 FG%, 65.1 FT%) would not be working his way into Atlanta’s rotation right now.
The swingman totaled 28 assists in 36 games as a freshman with the Jayhawks, and isn’t doing much more than that as a rookie playing alongside teammates worth passing to. His 0.7 assists per-36 is the lowest rate among non-NBA centers with at least 500 minutes logged, the 7th-lowest rate overall when you bother to throw centers into the mix. That wouldn’t fly with the Hawks. Oubre was getting steadier minutes while the Wizards wrestled with a plethora of injuries at the wing positions, but hasn’t been on the floor for 10+ minutes in a game since January 20.
As for Hardaway, he seems to be doing quite well for himself lately. Saturday’s win over the Rockets marked the second-straight time Junior reached the 20-point plateau, on the strength of a 5-for-7 3FG shooting bonanza. That brings his shooting splits since the All-Star Break to 50.0 FG%/42.2 3FG%/90.5 FT%. His four assists in the preceding game versus Denver showed he can fit within the flow of the Hawks’ pace-and-space-all-over-the-place offense.
I can’t speak for Tim, but if I was averaging 14.3 PPG as a starter for an NBA team in Manhattan, no matter the circumstance, I’d expect rose petals being laid before my feet during my daily entrances into arenas. Hardaway showed a complete lack of ego upon his arrival to Atlanta, and his commitment to improving his defense, mechanics, and conditioning off the floor while remaining a good egg on the sideline, is just beginning to pay dividends.
Morris plugs a starting spot at power forward that once belonged to Nene, as Wittman has chosen to bring his Brazilian big man off the bench. The player that began the season in that starting spot for the Wizards? Kris Humphries. Hump and DeJuan Blair were dealt to Phoenix in that Morris deal, was waived shortly thereafter, and now toils behind Paul Millsap and Al Horford in Atlanta. Blair was replaced on the roster by scuttled Nugget J.J. Hickson.
With his head on straight, or even slightly ajar, Morris (10.5 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 52.4 2FG%, 21.6 3FG% in 17 games for WAS) should be a definitive upgrade over Humphries and brings some stability to Washington’s forward positions, given Nene’s inexorable decline, the inconsistencies of Otto Porter (15.0 PPG last five games; career-high 23 points @ ATL on Nov. 7), and the expiring contracts of both Nene and Jared Dudley (43.1 3FG%).
In the immediate term, Morris will be used by the Wizards as an offensive answer for Atlanta’s Paul Millsap (last 3 games: 47.2 FG%, 10.3 RPG, 2.3 BPG). Whether Morris’ addition will be enough for the Wizards to crack the East’s Top 8 and make a meaningful playoff run remains to be seen.
Any shot the Wizards have begins and ends with Wall, and he’s playing like he knows it. He rung up a pair of double-doubles and two triple-doubles in last week’s four wins, averaging 21.0 PPG (40.0 3FG%, 95.7 FT%), 12.0 APG and 4.8 TOs/game, plus 7.0 defensive RPG to boot. While Kyle Lowry won the Player of the Week honors for the East, only Horford (+21.3) and dunk-meister Kyle Korver (+20.3) enjoyed a plus-minus average that approached Wall’s +22.0 last week.
Wall’s blazing speed is his selling point. Washington scores 18.7 fastbreak PPG (2nd in NBA) and runs the 4th-quickest pace in the league, but most of that is Wall pushing the tempo above all else. Defensively, the Hawks need to channel Wall’s energies to make him zip from sideline-to-sideline, rather than from hoop-to-hoop.
Wall takes the most mid-range shots (6.8 FGAs per game) of any East guard aside from DeMar Derozan, but only shoots as well on those (35.8 mid-range 2FG%) as he does on above-the-break threes (35.2 3FG%). Stout defensive work by the Hawks, particularly with help from Kent Bazemore (25 points, 4-for-7 3FGs vs. WAS on Nov. 7) and Thabo Sefolosha can again make Wall’s outing (19 points and 11 assists, 7 TOs, 6-for-16 FGs @ ATL on Nov. 7) an inefficient one.
Washington is one of the few teams that produce fewer second-chance PPG (10.2) than Atlanta (10.9). While both teams space the floor out for drives and pick-and-pop shots, Washington also deploys center Marcin Gortat for cuts to the hoop. Gortat’s 263 cut possessions are 61 more than the next closest player (Dallas’ Zaza Pachulia’s 204), although he isn’t especially efficient in scoring off them. Horford and Humphries should be prepared to short-circuit Gortat’s offense with sound positioning to disrupt passes and strip the ball when he struggles to gather it.
Victories over the coming week aren’t likely to clinch anything or eliminate anyone. But there’s a chance that one of these upcoming teams on Atlanta’s slate could be their first round playoff opponent. The Hawks can use these games to continue fine-tuning their play, and simultaneously give these opponents reasons to want to avoid them when the calendar turns to April.
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
