Official Game Thread: Grizzlies at Hawks

[NBASupes]

6 minutes ago, kg01 said:

You've gone off the deep end, supers.

I feel it's my duty as de facto mod to put a hand on your shoulder here.

You can say this but I love Trae Young and think he is a franchise player. The biggest face we have had since Nique. So I am saying this in good faith, i am not down on him saying he is garbage like i did Josh Smith. 

I just see too many critical flaws. I want to see improvements.

[kg01]

18 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

You can say this but I love Trae Young and think he is a franchise player. The biggest face we have had since Nique. So I am saying this in good faith, i am not down on him saying he is garbage like i did Josh Smith. 

I just see too many critical flaws. I want to see improvements.

Ok ... ok, supers.  Just take the green pills and get some rest, mmkay?

[hawkzlova123]

Wjy do you guys argue when you know that no one is gonna win all 81 games...

Like no one has ever done that just accept this as an iff night which happens to everyone and move on

 

 

[macdaddy]

Great players make mistakes all the time.  Hell Vince it's out there making bone headed plays that have nothing to do with his age.    I want to see Trae improve too.  I'm sure he does too.  But you see the superstar.  He just has to get the mental maturity to know when he's doing too much. 

But how many games would the Hawks have won without him?  This would have been perhaps one of the worst teams ever without Trae.

[KB21]

LOL!

[AHF]

59 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Speaking of the details...

 

What are opponents scoring when other players miss 3's?  Missed 3's are generally very good counterattacking opportunities so you'd expect them to be notably above the normal possession or especially any possession starting from an inbounds or dead ball.

[Spud2nique]

Everyone critiquing Trae must be damn good at their jobs here at squawk land. Maaaaan, y’all couch 🛋 coaches touch ur damn toes. Trae is a superstar with young talented players around him.

Its a process and actually due to his quick learning curve he’s made a lot of us here a bit greedy. 
 

Just chill and watch. It’ll be ok.

[NBASupes]

8 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

Everyone critiquing Trae must be damn good at their jobs here at squawk land. Maaaaan, y’all couch 🛋 coaches touch ur damn toes. Trae is a superstar with young talented players around him.

Its a process and actually due to his quick learning curve he’s made a lot of us here a bit greedy. 
 

Just chill and watch. It’ll be ok.

I think I am one of the best in the world at my professional job honestly. I think I am the best at what I do to be frank. 

As for Trae, he is a franchise player who as you stated, a young talented group of players as a part of our core with him being the centerpiece. I feel really good about that. 

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

7 hours ago, REHawksFan said:

The problem I have with Trae last night is that his "off night" wasn't just about missing shots. Everyone dies that from time to time. No issue with that. No. The real problem was the WAY Trae was playing. It was his decisions. We could see it from his pregame comments about facing off vs Ja. He was looking for a big night vs the rook and he failed to get anyone else involved. He forced shots, turned it over, and generally failed to actually run the offense. 

You wont find a bigger Trae fan than me but last night was unacceptable.  And unfortunately it was also entirely predictable. 

Trae still has a lot of maturing to do as a player & leader and as a second year player in the NBA, it's not that egregious that he got caught up in the bright lights vs. Ja. He's still a 21 year old kid, folks.

Also, this board seems to have already forgotten that we just won each game of a back-to-back series by double digit points... Be real guys... bad games happen time to time and ugly ones happen even fewer. Hell, that's all Bob and Nique could talk about in the first half.

[REHawksFan]

35 minutes ago, AHF said:

What are opponents scoring when other players miss 3's?  Missed 3's are generally very good counterattacking opportunities so you'd expect them to be notably above the normal possession or especially any possession starting from an inbounds or dead ball.

League avg in that scenario is 112. 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

League avg in that scenario is 112. 

But our defense on all possessions is way worse than league average.  I'm a lot more worried if our team is giving up 108 when others shoot 3's but 127 per when Trae shoots 3's than if we are giving up 124 when others shoot 3's and 127 when Trae does.

[bleachkit]

43 minutes ago, AHF said:

But our defense on all possessions is way worse than league average.  I'm a lot more worried if our team is giving up 108 when others shoot 3's but 127 per when Trae shoots 3's than if we are giving up 124 when others shoot 3's and 127 when Trae does.

There's no way to sugar coat the numbers. Trae's game has to evolve for us to become a good team. Not trying to put things on Trae, but your best player has to set the tone.

[AHF]

9 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

There's no way to sugar coat the numbers. Trae's game has to evolve for us to become a good team. Not trying to put things on Trae, but your best player has to set the tone.

We all know Trae has to improve on defense but you can't see any significance to that 127 number without understanding the context.  How big of a problem is Trae's defense if the team gives up 127 points per 100 possessions after Trae misses a 3 but gives up 130 points per 100 possessions when anyone else misses a 3?  I don't like that 127 point number but it is posted suggesting that this number is being driven by Trae when it could be that our team has just been generally terrible at defending after missed 3's regardless of whether that miss came from Cam, Trae, Hunter, Collins, etc.

Even if that stat is Trae specific and the team is great at defending missed 3's when anyone else shoots them, you still need some root cause analysis.  If that is the case, the team should start probing whether it is a matter of Trae's 3's being taken out of normal rhythm so that guys are caught unable to get back on D or if, for example, our wings are letting their men just run free after Trae shoots so that when the other team gets the ball they are lined up for easy shots.  In one case, it appears that Trae is the cause for the number while in the other it is less about him and more about his teammates failing in their responsibilities.

In every case, the team needs to improve its defense and Trae needs to improve his individually.  However, taking a number with no context can be very misleading so I think I'm fully justified in wanting more context to know to what degree Trae is the root cause.

[thecampster]

3 hours ago, NBASupes said:

You can say this but I love Trae Young and think he is a franchise player. The biggest face we have had since Nique. So I am saying this in good faith, i am not down on him saying he is garbage like i did Josh Smith. 

I just see too many critical flaws. I want to see improvements.

Honestly, he is not who I had a problem with last night.

 

1) I saw Trae pass the ball very early in a number of sets and there was an attitude to it. This usually tells me other players were not moving during the sets, not in the right spots. People were lethargic. On 2 lobs, Collins was late and it was obvious.

2) I've been paying attention and I'm seeing a bit of conflict on the team as a whole. I think that the rooks get so much time and Trae has free license has rubbed some the wrong way.

3) The officiating last night was awful. Memphis played a tight 3/2 zone most of the night as evidenced by all the strips, ball pokes, off-balance play in the lane. 1, 4, 5 in defensive scheme were in the lane all night and in some cases I counted up to 6 seconds in the lane for one player. It led to terrible play at both ends. It was an ugly game to watch.

4) This will be my first negative LP comment ever.  LP needed to lose his temper last night. Just benching the starters wasn't enough...He needed to scream a bit, get in someone's grill. He needed to go full Doug Collins on someone last night. He can't be their friend all the time. He is their coach.

[NBASupes]

18 minutes ago, thecampster said:

Honestly, he is not who I had a problem with last night.

 

1) I saw Trae pass the ball very early in a number of sets and there was an attitude to it. This usually tells me other players were not moving during the sets, not in the right spots. People were lethargic. On 2 lobs, Collins was late and it was obvious.

2) I've been paying attention and I'm seeing a bit of conflict on the team as a whole. I think that the rooks get so much time and Trae has free license has rubbed some the wrong way.

3) The officiating last night was awful. Memphis played a tight 3/2 zone most of the night as evidenced by all the strips, ball pokes, off-balance play in the lane. 1, 4, 5 in defensive scheme were in the lane all night and in some cases I counted up to 6 seconds in the lane for one player. It led to terrible play at both ends. It was an ugly game to watch.

4) This will be my first negative LP comment ever.  LP needed to lose his temper last night. Just benching the starters wasn't enough...He needed to scream a bit, get in someone's grill. He needed to go full Doug Collins on someone last night. He can't be their friend all the time. He is their coach.

I am interested about #2. I kinda got the same vibe of things being off. I know there tends to be some heat when one of the rookies plays. 

[RedDawg#8]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

I am interested about #2. I kinda got the same vibe of things being off. I know there tends to be some heat when one of the rookies plays. 

My response is by who though? There are barely any vets on this team and half of them were out injured and not available to play last night anyway.

So who was in there feelings:

Teague

Vince

one of the younger new to the team vets:

Graham

Jones?

 

Thats it, those are all the vets that were able play.

 

So was Graham mad even though he was the top wing off the bench?

Is Vince pissed because he has to end his career with us like this?

Was Teague upset that... he aint got shit to be mad at.

So then maybe Jones thought he should've been named starter over Bruno?

 

I dont know if this theory has legs based on last night only

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

5 hours ago, bleachkit said:

When he's missing threes our defense gets killed, the data confirms that.

LOL.   NOW y'all want to look at data.

 

[benhillboy]

2 hours ago, AHF said:

We all know Trae has to improve on defense but you can't see any significance to that 127 number without understanding the context.  How big of a problem is Trae's defense if the team gives up 127 points per 100 possessions after Trae misses a 3 but gives up 130 points per 100 possessions when anyone else misses a 3?  I don't like that 127 point number but it is posted suggesting that this number is being driven by Trae when it could be that our team has just been generally terrible at defending after missed 3's regardless of whether that miss came from Cam, Trae, Hunter, Collins, etc.

Even if that stat is Trae specific and the team is great at defending missed 3's when anyone else shoots them, you still need some root cause analysis.  If that is the case, the team should start probing whether it is a matter of Trae's 3's being taken out of normal rhythm so that guys are caught unable to get back on D or if, for example, our wings are letting their men just run free after Trae shoots so that when the other team gets the ball they are lined up for easy shots.  In one case, it appears that Trae is the cause for the number while in the other it is less about him and more about his teammates failing in their responsibilities.

In every case, the team needs to improve its defense and Trae needs to improve his individually.  However, taking a number with no context can be very misleading so I think I'm fully justified in wanting more context to know to what degree Trae is the root cause.

Per Kirk Goldsberry the Hawks’ defense rates 6th behind the Clippers at 106.8 per 100 with Trae on the bench.  

Edited March 4, 2020 by benhillboy

[cam1218]

12 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

Per Kirk Goldsberry the Hawks’ defense rates 6th behind the Clippers at 106.8 per 100 with Trae on the bench.  

I posted a little more about this in another thread, but you are looking at two benches going against each other at that point. Not saying he does not need to improve because he does, but that can be misleading considering how much he plays and who is on the court during those minutes. If he pulled a Collins and missed 25 games and our D posted those numbers I’d believe those numbers more. I think as a team, our defense is poor. 

[thecampster]

3 hours ago, NBASupes said:

I am interested about #2. I kinda got the same vibe of things being off. I know there tends to be some heat when one of the rookies plays. 

So I definitely saw it from both Huerter and Hunter. Jones I can't tell if he's just bad or disinterested. I see if from Teague when Trae pulls up from 3 without running the offense or having a defender in position.  Collins gets agitated when the rooks get caught watching and don't rotate on the pick and roll. Leaving nowhere to pass out.  IE, they sit in the corner instead of rotating to 1/2 way to the top of the key. We've had at least 20 turnovers this year from either passing to an empty spot or Trae getting caught in the air. Collins also gets irritated when Jones and Bruno get in the way on a lob potential or fail to box out early.

Edited March 4, 2020 by thecampster