REHawksFan

9 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Omfg, I can't believe I walked into that.  Smh 

Just imagine if Memphis or Toronto convince the Hawks they gonna take him at 7 or 8. Woo boy. We goin tradin baby!!  LOL

42 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

I didn't see the official announcement. Is JJ out for the season or just a couple of weeks? Curious if he could be back for the actual playoffs or if he's officially done. 

I've mentioned pace and its impact on the Hawks in other posts but I've never seen a topic specifically addressing this, so I figured I'd start one on the day before the potential last day of the season.  Now that the regular season has concluded, I looked at the league wide data to see what the trends were regarding pace.  See chart below.  

For your viewing pleasure, I've color coded the chart, breaking the NBA into 3 tiers - Top 10 Pace (green means go), Bottom 10 pace (red is for slow), and the Middle 10 pace.  At the bottom are the averages.  The Top 10 teams are all at Pace: 100+ level while the bottom 10 are all Pace: <98.  The Middle 10 are basically Pace: 98-100 with Bos and LAC the exceptions at 97.98 and 97.93. Interestingly, the Top 10 has 6 Playoff / Playin teams, the Middle 10 has 7, and the Bottom 10 has 7.  So it seems pretty evenly dispersed.  However...

Wins: 

• Top10: 36.8
• Mid10: 44.5
• Bot10: 41.7 

Rating:

• Top10:  ORtg: 114.8 / DRtg: 116.4 / NetRtg: -1.6
• Mid10: ORtg: 115.5 / DRtg: 113.7 / NetRtg: +1.8
• Bot10: ORtg: 113.3 / DRtg: 113.4 / NetRtg: -0.1

So league wide, there seems to be a sweet spot in pace that is between 98 and 99 possessions per 48 minutes.  That's where teams have the best success offensively and defensively.  But what about the Hawks?  Well...

The Hawks went 36-46 this year.  They suffered numerous injuries, played with countless lineups, and featured some 6-8 G-League level players in their normal rotations throughout the year.  And yet, there's still some Pace Trend data that seems somewhat insightful (to me anyway). 

The Hawks average pace this year was 100.84 which ranked 6th in the NBA as shown above.  I have often asserted that the Hawks are at their best when they slow down and play with less pace.  I think it helps them be more efficient offensively and play better defense.  Simply put, my contention is that the Hawks playing fast is generally a disaster in terms of TOs and poor defense.  But I haven't ever studied it to see if that assertion was correct.  So here goes:  I looked at the 82 game schedule to see what, if any, trends emerged around their pace of play.  I sorted the entire season by Pace and then looked at win/loss record, ORtg, DRtg, TS%, AST%, and REB%. 

I separated the season into 3 main categories by Pace:  Pace: 100+, Pace: 98-99, and Pace: 98 or less.  Then, I also considered one subcategory which is explained below.  The chart below summarizes what I found.  

As shown above, the Hawks went 18-22 with a -3.5 Net Rating in 40 games where they played at a pace of 100 or greater.  This accounts for 50% of their wins and nearly 50% of their games.  Interestingly, of the 18 wins, only 3 were against playoff teams and another 3 against playin teams.  So 6 of 18 wins in this group are quality teams. 

In the Middle Pace group, the Hawks only played 10 games with a pace between 98 and 100.  They went 2-8 with a net rating of -6.9.  Ugly.  Not much else to say. The offense dipped while the defense got worse.  The competition was tough, however, as 7 of the 10 games were against playoff / playin teams.  

Finally, in the Bottom Pace tier (Pace: Less than 98), the Hawks played 32 games and went 16-16 with a Net Rating of +1.2.  This was BY FAR their best showing and is all the more impressive when you consider that 23 of the 32 games are against playoff / playin teams.  

So, in general, the Hawks do better when they play slower.  But you may notice the light blue line above.  I noticed in the data that the Hawks do particularly well when they play at Pace: 95 or less.  In fact, they played 19 such games all season (nearly 25% of the season) and went a remarkable 12-7 with a net rating of +5.3.  Their offensive rating would rank Top 5 in the NBA while their DRating would be Top 15.  Simply put, this was their absolute BEST play of the year, despite injuries and roster issues.  And more amazingly, of the 12 wins, 10 (TEN!!) came against playoff or playin teams. And before anyone asks, yes, Trae played in several of these 19 games.   

The last thing I'll say is this. I mentioned that I also looked at TS%, TO%, REB%, and AST% at various pace levels. The chart for that is below.  It doesn't show a huge difference between pace levels for most of these stats.  

Final Final thing I'll say....I'm not suggesting the Hawks commit to playing at a slow, less than 95 pace every game.  It's more that I think slowing down in general will cover up a lot of their defensive issues (which are exacerbated by playing ultra fast) and will likely lead to better offensive opportunities.  I think we see this in the League-Wide data and in the Hawks specific data.  As with everything, there's probably a happy middle ground they need to find which is not too slow and not too fast, but I tend to the believe that are is going to be much less than 100 poss / 48 minutes.  

Anyone else have thoughts on Pace and the Hawks?  

15 hours ago, cam1218 said:

Will somebody please convince me that I want us to be the 8th seed, making me stay up late watching 8:30 playoff games against the Celtics. The other option of just calling this season what it is and moving on to draft/offseason mode just sounds, better?

Not going to try to convince you one way or the other. To me, it comes down to this....

Which do you value more?  

• 4-6 playoff games (in all likelihood) involving the Hawks; OR
• A top 10 pick in a weak draft 

Personally, it's a no brainer for me - I want the playoff games.  Although I admit I'd be more excited about them if JJ was healthy.  Still, nothing beats the playoffs, imo.  So I'll take 4-6 games of exciting playoff energy as the pot of pyrite at the end of this crappy rainbow of a season.  

1 minute ago, terrell said:

Not all his fault like I said but its just facts.. lol

No you didn't. Not in the original post. Which is exactly why I called it disingenuous. You knew those losses weren't on Trae but conveniently implied they were becaise it fits your opinion of him. It was only later that you admitted it wasnt on Trae. It's a bunch of nonsense. But you do you. 

5 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

You just gotta laugh at that kinda stuff man. No sense in even responding.

You're right of course. The foolishness of a few just gets under my skin. 

So 5-10 is:

Magic

Pacers

Sixers

Heat

Bulls

Hawks

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

They just need to add Edey. That will solve all of their offensive issues. Defensively, we gonna take some time no matter what but I'll rather be a team that wins 48 games than a team that wins 35 games. 

Hawks would serve themselves well to slow their pace considerably. The faster Trae plays the more TOs he ends up with. When they slow it down they are significantly more efficient. And their D improves as well. 

2 minutes ago, terrell said:

I know you hate this stat, but Your boy Trae is a -39..  Good grief

Hate it. I hated it Friday when he was +16 as well. 

Honestly though...Bruno has best starter +/- at -28 while the Indy bigs went for 70+ on 75% shooting. But yeah....that stat is really instructive. LOL

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

66 points between Turner, Siakam, and Smith and it's only the 3rd quarter 

On 76.3% shooting.  The Bruno/Dre/MO combo on D is somethin.

As long as Philly is Top 6, I think Hawks are 90% or better to make the playoffs. If you had to take 2 of Orlando, Indy, Miami, Atlanta, and Chicago, I don't see how Hawks aren't favored to be in top 2. 

If you add Philly to that the odds drop substantially. 

8 hours ago, terrell said:

Tankathon has the KIngs in the lottery..

https://www.tankathon.com/

 

 

 

Tankathon just pulls the current standings. Nothing new. Kings either make the playoffs through the play in or they keep the pick. Citing tankathon is pointless. Just cite the standings. LOL

Well....I like the way the team is playing when the rotation guys are in. 

The question now is what is the rotation for the play in? Does Vit make it? 

Trae

DJ

Bogi

Dre

Clint

Bruno

Vit?

Kobe?

GMat?

Mo?

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

My guess is Trae still on minutes restrictions and DJ's quad might be a real thing.

Yeah...I mean, the game means nothing in terms of winning or losing. As long as they get as right as they can for the play in, that's all that really matters.

Vit and GMat checking in. Yall gonna have to explain this to me. 

I guess Q saying F it. Play errbody. LOL

I'm not a fan of the stat, but since it's the en vogue thing to cite....

Trae is currently +16

Next best Hawk is +4

1 minute ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Trae is at 25 minutes. Is he still on minutes restriction?

If he is they gonna lose.  Need Trae's playmaking to win this game. 

2 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Trae - play with food short 3

DJ - wide open brick 3

Dre - blown rebound layup

Conley - wide open transition 3

 

Trae's played well considering the long layoff, but he's also passed up a couple of wide open lanes for kick out 3s that was bricked by Dre, DJ, and Bogi.

10-16 from the line

1-11 from 3pt

Yuck.

Is Trae on a min restriction tonight?