Official Game Thread: Hawks - Magic

[lethalweapon3]

Your Atlanta Hawks head down to the Sunshine State hoping their offense will continue heating up against the Orlando Magic (7:00 PM Eastern, SportSouth, Fox Sports Florida). Atlanta’s 102.2 points per game trails only Miami (104.0 PPG) in the East.

In the slightly comfier confines of The Highlight Factory, the Hawks (21-19) foiled the HEAT on Monday evening for their third straight win on COP Drive. It was the eleventh time among the last 13 tip-offs at Philips Arena where the Hawks walked off as victors. In fact, if you extrapolated the Hawks’ “home” record so far this year (15-6, 8^th in NBA, blowout loss in London included) out to the full season, they would be tied with their division leaders in the standings.

Lately this season, Atlanta has routinely managed to prevail over the hijinks of the refs, the opponents, and the occasionally visitor-friendly crowd at Philips. All of which makes it quite confounding that they have such an underwhelming road record. Their official record in away games (6-13, 25^th in NBA) is the worst among the East’s Top 9 teams.

When including An American Whoopazz in London, Atlanta has come out on top in just two of its last 12 games away from Philips Arena. They needed heroics from Jeff Teague and histrionics from Jordan Crawford just to seal the deal in those two wins. While they have impressive home wins against Indy, Houston, the Clippers, and now Miami, their six road wins have come against the Kings, Bobcats, Knicks, Pistons, Cavs, and Celtics. In hindsight, that’s not exactly a Murderer’s Row.

Atlanta’s assist-turnover ratio of 1.92 in home games (2^nd in NBA, to the Spurs) drops to a less-impressive 1.46 on the road (11^th in NBA). More telling, their defensive rating of 99.3 (points per 100 possessions, 6^th best in NBA) in “home” games (again, Brooklyn beatdown included) surges to 106.6 (7^th worst in NBA) in the away games. Their decided advantage in per-game assists at “home” (27.2 to 22.7) is essentially wiped out on the road (23.8 to 23.7). Surely, it’s not Sir Foster’s stylistics on the organ that they’re missing, is it?

Only Indiana and Chicago have played as few road contests among Eastern Conference teams to this point. With The Circus coming to town by the end of next month, the Hawks will want to iron out the discrepancies in their play soon.

The road-leery Hawks will get another chance to feel for the floor against the Magic (11-31; one win in their last 12 games; five wins in their last 22 games), who carry the league’s worst road record but are also just 8-13 at home (4^th worst in the NBA, surpassing only Larry’s Bucks, Smoove’s Pistons, and Woody’s Knicks). Their sole win in 2014 was a two-point win at Amway Center against the similarly freefalling Celtics. After collapsing early in the second half last night to Joe’s Nets, Orlando returned home on a delayed flight from snowy NYC that didn’t depart until around 1:00 AM.

The Magic continues to miss out on the services of their leading rebounder, Nikola Vucevic, who sustained a particularly harsh concussion a couple weeks ago in a game against the Clippers and has yet to pass league-mandated testing. Yet by night’s end, Orlando is hoping to boast that one-fourth of their wins this year have come against division-foe Atlanta.

Keep a close eye on the assist tallies for each team. Orlando’s two highest assist totals this season have come in their two victories against the Hawks (30 assists on December 29 in Orlando, 29 assists on November 26 in Atlanta). The 109-102 win in December is the only victory out of 27 Magic games (1-26) where they’ve given up more than 95 points to opponents.

Head Coach Jacque Vaughn’s offense is at its letter-best when All-Star candidate Arron Afflalo (20.6 PPG 42.5 3FG%) and opportunistic rookie Victor Oladipo (1.5 SPG) are helping Jameer Nelson exploit mismatches and getting teammates involved in the passing game off dribble penetration and cuts. The Magic held serve with Brooklyn early yesterday, when Nelson assisted on their first five field goals, but fell into ruts virtually everytime they resorted to isolation plays.

So it goes without saying the Hawks need defensive pressure and offensive composure from their starting point guard. For now, that person remains Jeff Teague, who could barely buy a bucket in Atlanta’s win over Miami (1-for-7, two points) but did manage to put up six assists and just one turnover in under 20 minutes of action. He was spelled for much of the second half by Shelvin Mack (seven assists, one turnover in 27 minutes), who fared much better against Miami’s suddenly suspect D (5-for-10, 13 points).

Teague (37.7 assist %, 7^th in NBA) has been given ample patience to work through his shooting funk (35.2 FG% and 11.1 3FG%, 86.0 offensive rating in January). But extended stints of sound ball-control (3.36 assist-turnover ratio, 6^th among NBA point guards) and big shots from Mack may force Coach Mike Budenholzer’s hand soon.

Both players could continue to use some help in the passing game from Lou Williams and Kyle Korver, authors of 11 of the Hawks’ 33 assists against Miami. That duo will be needed to offset the contributions Nelson gets from Afflalo and Oladipo, and they should continue finding ways to earn trips to the free throw line.

Korver (92.9 FT%, just 1.0 attempts per game), Williams (82.1 FT%, 2.1 attempts per game), and Mack (82.9 FT%, 1.0 attempts per game) nailed all 11 of their freebies against the HEAT, helping Paul Millsap (10-for-11 FTs, 26 points) keep Miami at bay. Atlanta has converted 87.3% of their free throws in their last eight games. With Al Horford out of the picture, the Hawks (78.1 FT%, 6^th in NBA) now have just one player shooting below 70 percent from the charity stripe (Dennis Schröder’s 66.7 FT%).

Just as Atlanta’s bench came through with offense against Miami to ease the pressure off of their starting unit, Orlando got a boost last night with E’Twaun Moore and, especially, second-year center Kyle O’Quinn (season-high 15 points, four of Orlando’s six offensive rebounds). It was the fifth game in the last six for KOQ with at least 15 minutes of action, and he’s making the most of his newfound floor time with Vucevic unavailable.

The Hawks will have to find the right balance of Pero Antić and Elton Brand to match up with Glen Davis and O’Quinn upfront. Mid-range opportunities abound for the Hawks against a Magic team that gives up a league-leading 11.3 field goals per game (41.8 opponent FG%, 4^th in NBA) on two-pointers outside the paint. Orlando also takes a lot of these shots (11.1 mid-range field goals per game, 2^nd in NBA; 42.2 mid-range FG%), so it will help the Hawks to diversify the offensive play calls and keep Orlando guessing.

Go Hawks!

~lw3

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[Admin]

Looking forward to seeing if we come out hot in this one. I didn't see the Miami game so maybe I shouldn't watch this one either?

[DJlaysitup]

GO HAWKS !!!

[Dnice]

stop being turnover prone!

[anxietyreigns]

DMC!!Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

[Dnice]

They need better d in the 2nd half...other than that, things look ok.

[supermariowest]

Seems like we're always giving up cheap points at the end of the quarter.

[Dnice]

Good to get some room in the 3rd so far.

[Admin]

Still not watching us play... sounds like we're doing good so far. I'm gonna stop watching until we lose a game. Hope that's a long time from now!

[Ruckus]

Behind the back Sap to Kyle for threeeeeeee!!!!!!!

[anxietyreigns]

Cannot beat this team.They are 96 Bulls against us.Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

[anxietyreigns]

Are the Magic ways this good offensively? Seems like they hit every jump shot. Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

[Guest]

Unforced turnovers killing us!

[anxietyreigns]

I must say I am stunned.Sent from my SCH-R950 using Tapatalk

[capstone21]

That was a fun game to watch

[DatWerkk]

...and I don't wanna NEEEEEEVER hear nobody talking about KK's defense ever again!

Go Hawks!

[Admin]

The streak is at 2 games now with me not watching. I sure didn't think we were gonna pull it off though but I was following the boxscore on ESPN. Millsap 2 steals away from a 5x5 game! Antić with the clutch scoring at the end of the game. Missed FT's almost did us in.

[Guest]

Pero with the clutch free throws (that's For Grandpa Gray).Thanks Dolfan for not watching - we play our big brothers (SAS) Friday - so you are definitely not watching!!

Edited January 23, 2014 by JayBirdHawk

[DatWerkk]

And speaking of topics I don't wanna hear about ever again, that guy Pero Antić man. Why is he still getting PT? He's soft. He can't rebound. He can't play inside. :laugh:

[Sothron]

This board was going to go nuclear if we lost that game after blowing a 19 point lead in the 3rd but thankfully we pulled it out. Pero hit some clutch as **** free throws to win it.