Premium Member Jdawgflow Posted February 2, 2015 Premium Member Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12265201/reasons-atlanta-hawks-winning-streak-nba?src=mobile&rand=ref~%7B%22ref%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fhawksquawk.net%2Fcommunity%2Ftopic%2F403617-insider-article-today%2F%22%7D Just curious if anyone read this. Is it a good read, and if so, what was the jist of the article? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member cam1218 Posted February 2, 2015 Premium Member Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 With two wins over the weekend, the Atlanta Hawks extended their winning streak to 19 games, tied for the fifth-longest in NBA history during a single season. A win Monday night against theNew Orleans Pelicans would allow Atlanta to join the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers (33), 2012-13Miami Heat (27), 2007-08 Houston Rockets (22) and 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks (20) as the fifth team ever to win 20 games in a row the same season. Of that group, all but the Rockets eventually won the championship. That's heady stuff for a team that won only twice as many games during all of 2014-15 (38) than during its current winning streak. How have the Hawks done it? The key has been unparalleled balance. Balanced starting five In a league in which star power is often a trump card, Atlanta has used a different formula. No Hawks rank among the league's top 10 players in terms of my wins above replacement player (WARP) stat, with Paul Millsap in 15th. But if we compare teams' second-best players in terms of WARP, Jeff Teague ranks fourth. Same with Al Horford among third-best players. And Atlanta boasts the best of the group of fourth- and fifth-best players in Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll, respectively. Such balance allowed Atlanta to put a league-high three players on the Eastern Conference All-Star roster (Horford, Millsap and Teague), with the outside chance that Korver joins them as a replacement if Dwyane Wade is unable to play due to injury. Taking advantage of their many options, the Hawks employ one of the league's most equal-opportunity late-game offenses. As I noted in last week's 5-on-5 roundtable, 21 teams have at least one player with a higher usage rate in "clutch" situations than Teague, according to NBA.com/Stats (which defines them as the last five minutes of a game in which the margin is no more than five points). Yet Atlanta's offense scores 124.0 points per 100 possessions in the clutch -- the NBA's best mark. Deep bench The Hawks' starting lineup has been predictably terrific, outscoring opponents by 11.0 points per 100 possessions this season. Yet Atlanta loses little when head coach Mike Budenholzer goes to his bench. In fact, the Hawks are slightly better (+15.2 points per 100) when one of their starters is on the bench. They're nearly as good (+10.0 per 100) with three starters and two reserves. Hawks' performance by starters # Net rating 5 +11.0 4 +15.2 3 +10.0 2 +4.8 1 +3.7 0 -15.6 As the chart shows, it's only when more reserves are on the court than starters that Atlanta sees any real drop-off, and even then they've still outscored opponents as long as at least one starter is in the game. Budenholzer has done a fine job mixing and matching his two units to ensure that happens primarily in garbage time. The Hawks' depth came up big in Friday's win over the Portland Trail Blazers. Playing without wings Carroll and Thabo Sefolosha (who is expected to miss the next 6-8 weeks without a strained calf), Budenholzer turned to Kent Bazemore, who played a career-high 40 minutes and scored 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting. Because Atlanta goes 11 deep (guard Shelvin Mack has been mostly out of the rotation after he was one of the team's most effective reserves last season), it would be difficult for the Hawks to add a player before the trade deadline who would be a significant upgrade. Balanced at both ends All of those effective players produce two strong units for Atlanta and both ends of the court. The Hawks are fifth in the NBA in offensive rating and third in defensive rating. Just 30 teams since the ABA-NBA merger have finished in the top five at both ends, most recently the 2012-13Oklahoma City Thunder, who went 60-22 in the regular season before losing Russell Westbrookto injury in the playoffs. This season, both Atlanta and the Golden State Warriors (third in offense and first in defense) could join that group. The 10 most similar teams to the Hawks' combination of offense and defense, relative to league average, include a pair of recent champions: the 2008-09 Los Angeles Lakers (who ranked third in offense and fifth in defense) and, fittingly, last season's San Antonio Spurs (third and offense and sixth in defense). Naturally, Atlanta has been even better during the streak, ranking third in both offensive rating and defensive rating in that span. Just six teams in post-merger history have maintained a top-3 combination over a full season. The future of the streak The Hawks' impressive statistics are slightly tempered by the fact that they've played the league's easiest schedule thus far. During the streak, however, Atlanta's opponents have been nearly average in difficulty. That's still about to go up over the next week. Winning at New Orleans and beating the Washington Wizards at home won't be easy, but the real tests come next weekend. On Friday, the Hawks host the Warriors in a battle of the first-place teams in their respective conferences. Two days later, Atlanta will visit a Memphis Grizzlies team that has won 10 of its last 11 games. Those figure to be the first two games in which the Hawks have been underdogs since beating the Blazers and Clippers on the road on Jan. 3 and 5. My projections suggest Atlanta has less than a one in 10 chance of maintaining its streak through the next week. Projecting the Hawks' streak Date Opponent Win% Streak% Monday at New Orleans .551 .551 Wednesday Washington .690 .380 Friday Golden State .423 .161 Sunday at Memphis .424 .068 Of course, the Hawks' balance has already enabled them to defy the odds to get to this point. We'll see how long they can continue doing so. News and notes • It looks like the Houston Rockets must prepare to play without Dwight Howard for an extended period. ESPN.com senior writer Marc Stein reported Saturday night that the Rockets fear their center will be out for a matter of weeks to relieve fluid buildup in his right knee, which has bothered Howard all season. Houston has gone 11-5 without Howard this season, but there has been some good fortune in that record. The Rockets are outscoring opponents by 4.8 points per game when Howard plays as compared to a plus-1.2 differential when Howard sits. That would typically translate to a 9-7 or 8-8 record. The good news for the Rockets is most of those games were also played without forward Terrence Jones, who returned Wednesday after missing 41 games due to nerve inflammation in his left leg. Jones has yet to shake off the rust from the extended absence, but with him and Josh Smith at power forward Kevin McHale can feel comfortable shifting Donatas Motiejunas to the middle. • While there's no shame in losing to the red-hot Grizzlies on the road, Oklahoma City's 85-74 loss Saturday night at Memphis was the Thunder's fourth in the past five games. After peaking at 22-20 following an overtime win in Washington, Oklahoma City has now slipped back below .500 and a full four games back (three in the loss column) of the Phoenix Suns for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West. The Thunder aren't right offensively. As Zach Lowe noted on Twitter, since Kevin Durantreturned on New Year's Eve, they rank tied for 21st in the NBA in offensive rating. Although Durant has missed some time since then, including Wednesday's loss to the New York Knicks, that's shocking for a team with two of the NBA's best scorers. It's a tiny sample, but in 133 minutes the trio of Durant, Dion Waiters and Russell Westbrook has averaged just 97.8 points per 100 possessions. By contrast, the Durant-Reggie Jackson-Westbrook trio that is now out of favor has scored 105.2 per 100 this season. • According to The Associated Press, Minnesota Timberwolves guard Ricky Rubio is set to return Monday against the Dallas Mavericks after missing more than half the season (42 games) with a badly sprained ankle suffered on Nov. 7 at Orlando. Most of the focus will be on what Rubio's passing can add, but fill-in Mo Williams has actually done a reasonably credible Rubio impersonation. His assist rate ranks 10th in the league, and the Timberwolves are 10th in percentage of field goals off assists. Rubio will help offensively by taking rookie Zach LaVine out of the point-guard rotation, but the bigger upgrade will be on defense. Rubio's defensive rating in ESPN's real plus-minus ranked second among point guards last season, while Williams ranks 67th at the position this season. • Weekly top five: Best non-All-Star seasons 5. Horace Grant (1991-92) 4. Charles Barkley (1985-86) 3. Dirk Nowitzki (2000-01) 2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1977-78) 1. John Stockton (1987-88) Honorable mention: Nate Archibald (1971-72), Mookie Blaylock (1996-97), Elton Brand (2004-05) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ersimo2889 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 The Hawks' impressive statistics are slightly tempered by the fact that they've played the league's easiest schedule thus far. Gee - it's so surprising that the team that gives every opponent it plays a loss has played a schedule where their opponents have a lot of losses. What a tiring narrative. And I wonder why the Lakers have the best strength of schedule.. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frosgrim Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Thabo's injury is a complete calf-endectomy! "Thabo Sefolosha (who is expected to miss the next 6-8 weeks without a strained calf" Damn that has to hurt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Thabo's injury is a complete calf-endectomy! "Thabo Sefolosha (who is expected to miss the next 6-8 weeks without a strained calf" Damn that has to hurt That is some kinda confusing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plainview1981 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 They do deserve to be ranked number one, but they're slowly coming back down to earth. Some losses are probably coming this next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plainview1981 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Gee - it's so surprising that the team that gives every opponent it plays a loss has played a schedule where their opponents have a lot of losses. What a tiring narrative. And I wonder why the Lakers have the best strength of schedule.. The hypocrisy is that nobody points out that the Clippers and Mavericks have failed to beat quality teams this year... But they're still considered big time threats. It makes no sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators macdaddy Posted February 2, 2015 Moderators Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Gee - it's so surprising that the team that gives every opponent it plays a loss has played a schedule where their opponents have a lot of losses. What a tiring narrative. And I wonder why the Lakers have the best strength of schedule.. Well you forgot about that fact that we haven't played a team with a better record than us in weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 They do deserve to be ranked number one, but they're slowly coming back down to earth. Some losses are probably coming this next week. I'm not sure if it's them 'coming back to earth' as much as it's a reflection of the fact that the NBA season is a grind/marathon (grindathon?). Nothing wrong with losing a game here or there. It just happens. The great thing to watch for now is, once they do finally lose a game, all the sideline neg-nellies who've begrudgingly praised the Hawks (since there were no losses for them to pick apart) hop back on the "DEY OVAH-RATED!!" bandwagon. Any loss or close-win will be met with Deflategate-level over-analysis. It'll be eye-roll worthy. "See, see, we told you they were gonna fade in the playoffs!!!!!" No dummies, losses happen in the NBA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 The hypocrisy is that nobody points out that the Clippers and Mavericks have failed to beat quality teams this year... But they're still considered big time threats. It makes no sense. You forgot to add the Wiz -er- 'Zards who have soooo much more playoff experience than us and who are destined to get to the ECF. Nevermind the 0-2 record against the team the trail in the standings. Nevermind the fact that they're having to rely on an aging Paula Pierce since Super Beal and Otto von Bust Porter have been giving them nothing. Nah, that's not important ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plainview1981 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 You forgot to add the Wiz -er- 'Zards who have soooo much more playoff experience than us and who are destined to get to the ECF. Nevermind the 0-2 record against the team the trail in the standings. Nevermind the fact that they're having to rely on an aging Paula Pierce since Super Beal and Otto von Bust Porter have been giving them nothing. Nah, that's not important ... Beal is one of the most overrated players in the NBA.... People act like he is a superstar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Jdawgflow Posted February 2, 2015 Author Premium Member Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Thank you cam for posting this. Our balance still blows people's minds, but when we lose again I agree that there will be many saying we aren't as good as our record. And hots, we are not playing as good as we were. We do have two pieces out though and played a lot of games over the past month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JETSET Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Beal is one of the most overrated players in the NBA.... People act like he is a superstar. I agree. Korver >>> Beal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now