AJC: L.D. says 'commitment' to transition D still lacking

[Hawksquawk]

In the huddle at the end of practice, L.D. summed up the Hawks’ performance against the Grizzlies for his players: “We didn’t play play great. We didn’t play good. We were about average.”

The turnovers weren’t surprising because it was the first exhibition game and the Hawks were focused on running the new motion offense. They forced some passes because they haven’t mastered the reads and timing required to take advantage when defenders overplay the passing lanes.

Less acceptable to L.D. were all those baskets the Grizzlies scored in transition as they came back from 23 points down in the third quarter.

“My challenge to them is going to be on the defensive end and making sure we don’t give up easy transition baskets,” he said. “How we do that is make the commitment to getting back and getting our defense set. We didn’t do that in the third quarter.”

Don’t want to overstate things here. It was the first exhibition game for a team trying to develop a new offensive identity. L.D. …

View the full article