Official Game Thread: Raptors at Hawks

[lethalweapon3]

“This how they do ‘THE U!’ in Australia.”

 

Not quite Dead from Downtown! The Atlanta Hawks brought what Bob Rathbun calls ‘moxie’ into the second half last night to dispatch the Knicks, and they’ll need more of that today to notch just their third home victory this season, versus the Toronto Raptors (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, TSN in T-Dot).

Up North, fan fatigue is beginning to set in with fifth-year GM Masai Ujiri, seventh-year coach Dwane Casey, and the Jurassic Fifteen. Yes, the Raptors (11-7, 5-6 on the road) are on pace for their third consecutive 50-plus-win season. But the newness of their regular season success has been wearing on the fanbase. Consumer confidence remains weak that this outfit might match the advancement achieved by the 2015-16 unit that reached the Eastern Conference Finals. It’s just November, but there is a lingering sense that we already know how this season’s campaign will conclude.

Ujiri spent this summer shifting the deck chairs on Toronto’s Titanic. Just a couple years removed from shouting “Buck Frooklyn!” at a public playoff rally, Masai found it necessary to deal with the Frooklynites in order to save some payroll bucks. He sweetened the departure of former Hawk DeMarre Carroll with next year’s first-round pick, plus a second-rounder, in exchange for the immediately disposable Justin Hamilton. Toronto native Cory Joseph was sent off to Indiana for just one eternally stashable 30-year-old Euro-dude.

After swinging for the fences before the 2017 trading deadline with a deal for Serge Ibaka (11.9 PPG, 5.5 RPG), who was brought back along with Kyle Lowry on a free agent deal, the Raptors’ biggest summer splash was with former Pacer C.J. Miles (out for today’s game while caring for a newborn).

Sharing an Atlantic Division where all the hype is directed toward the budding stars on the Celtics, the Sixers, and the Knicks, fans are struggling to find a reason to cling their hopes on players like longtime center Jonas Valanciunas (career-low 20.1 minutes/game), who is only 25 years of age but seems to already be bumping his head on his ceiling.

Ten players on the Raps’ 15-man roster are 25 years old or younger. But who among them is about to make a star turn? Swingman Norman Powell, starting rookie OG Anunoby, rim-plugger Bebe Noguiera, second-year space-eater Jakob Poeltl, or the injured backup point guard Delon Wright? Who have the Raptors been developing that will be ready this spring to help Toronto stay competitive with the East’s top tier?

The task of producing answers falls upon Casey, who already has the thankless challenge of managing playing time for his two backcourt All-Stars. DeMar DeRozan (reigning Eastern Conference Player of the Week; 24.1 PPG, career-high 4.4 APG) and Lowry remain strong offensive talents that get unfortunately lax on the other end, and they struggle to get it going for their team simultaneously in games.

After averaging a career-high 22.4 PPG in 2016-17, Lowry failed to crack 20 points in scoring until his 14^th game this season. He’s shaken off the barnacles during his last five games (20.6 PPG, 45.2 3FG%, 7.6 APG), but his running mate, DeRozan, is often off when he’s on. Such was the case in last night’s 107-104 road loss to the Pacers, where DeMar managed just 13 points on 6-for-16 shooting with four turnovers in 39 minutes, an inadequate balance for Lowry (24 points, 5-for-9 3FGs, 10 boards, 8 assists).

Even with DeRozan in tow, Toronto shoots a high proportion of threes (38.0% of shots from 3-point range, 4^th-highest in NBA), but isn’t particularly good at either making them (34.6 team 3FG%, 23^rd in NBA), or at producing second-chances (20.7 O-Reb%, 23^rd in NBA; 10.2 second-chance points per-48, 25^th in NBA).

The Hawks’ ability to turn the tide on Friday came when the Kanter-less Knicks’ jump-shooting cooled off. Keeping New York off the offensive glass and gaining decisive advantages in the turnover department (9 player TOs, fewest all season; one Knicks steal, fewest by a Hawks opponent since 2/25/2015) granted Atlanta 20 additional field goal opportunities, a season-high 99 in total.

The Hawks need another strong defensive rebounding effort from Kent Bazemore, Taurean Prince, and Ersan Ilyasova to alleviate their starting bigs, and they’ll need to stay disciplined enough not to bail out DeRozan (8.0 FTAs per-36, 6^th in NBA) and Lowry (91.1 FT%, 10^th in NBA) with trips to the free throw line.

Mike Budenholzer’s club hopes for a similar result on consecutive nights, but may have to pull away earlier in the second half to enhance their chances for their first two-game win streak of the season. The Raps are 11-0 in games where they led or were tied through the first three quarters, but 0-7 otherwise.

Atlanta (seven players in double figures vs. NYK, not counting Tyler Cavanuagh’s 8 points in 12 minutes) will again rely on a balanced attack but will also turn to Dennis Schröder (26 points, 8 assists vs. NYK), who buried the Raptors in these teams’ previous meeting last March with 13 fourth-quarter points in a 105-99 victory, to salt the game away.

There’s usually no reason to fret about the prospect of a small losing string, but few executives are as compulsive about their team losing, and growing stale, as Ujiri. A third-straight defeat for the Raptors, who just lost to the Knicks at MSG on Wednesday, might allow us to see just how easily triggered Toronto’s GM can get.

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

 

View full record

 

[marco102]

Great again!  @lethalweapon3

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Maybe they can execute one of the greatest comebacks in Hawk history.  Down a whopping 26 points right now though, with the Raptors threatening to hang 70 points on us before halftime.

[hazer]

No need to jeapardize a Top 5 pick with 2 wins in a row...

[Thomas]

So I guess beating the Knicks was not much of a measuring stick. Just painful tonight with us missing the side of the barn and the Raptors shooting lights out. 

[hazer]

Took the night off...

[nathan2331]

How long are we stuck with Plumlee's contract?

 

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

 

 

[hazer]

First game this season I did NOT enjoy watching. Pew...

[Peoriabird]

Now that looked like a Philadelphia tank game.

[AHF]

14 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Now that looked like a Philadelphia tank game.

Some of our games last year did too. We had our share of 30+ point losses.

[Thomas]

This game really made me think about Ayton, Doncic, Bridges, Allen, etc....You know, alongside Dennis, Prince and The Baptist. Hitting our stride in a couple of years with that kind of lineup would be fun to watch am pretty sure and certainly with much higher expectations. 

[Thomas]

10 hours ago, nathan2331 said:

How long are we stuck with Plumlee's contract?

 

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk

 

 

Ugh, you are not going to like this but he has two more years after this season guaranteed at 12.5 million each. There has to be another sucker out there somewhere to relieve us of this, right? 

http://www.spotrac.com/nba/atlanta-hawks/miles-plumlee-10851/

 

[LamarHampton]

I forgot Plumlee was even on the team, let alone dressing out and being available. Wish that had stayed repressed.

[Sothron]

We're stuck with Plumless, nothing we can do about it. We'd have to give up a positive to sink the cost for another team to take that contract.

This was our first blow out truly bad loss of the year. Considering we had these kind of losses several times a year during our playoff streak no one should be surprised.