Official Game Thread: Hawks at Celtics

[REHawksFan]

2 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

Brad's not the only one saying that.  There's a handful on here that have been screaming it, including you.  It's a little surprising that there's opposition to it, if I'm being honest.  It just seems intuitive that your best player needs to be aggressive and dominant to have the best chance to win.  

[Atlantaholic]

36 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

According to NBA.com, his 59.8% TS% ranks 41st among all Guards and SFs with at least 15 min per game.  There's 173 qualified players so Trae is Top 75% of the NBA.  

On a PPS basis, his 1.497 pts per shot ranks 11th out of the top 150 scorers in the NBA so almost top 5% of NBA.  If you filter it down to players that actually attempt 10 or more shots per game, he's 6th in the NBA.

No matter how you slice it, it's inaccurate to say Trae is not an efficient scorer.  You can argue his FG% isn't high enough and that's fair, but as far as scoring goes, he's one of the most efficient players in the NBA.    

And if you filter that andlook at the top 10 scorers only Embiid averages less shots per game than Trae. Trae has been very erfficient scoring the ball for someone that scores at his volume. He was very efficient last year too. With the way he gets to the line efficiency will never be a big problem scoring-wise. The fact he is currently at close to .60% TS despite having a FG% of 43 and a 3pt% of 37 is fantastic, if he's able to just up those % a little bit and get to around 45 and 38-39 his TS should elevate to around the .62 range which is Kevin Durant range. 

To me Trae's area of improvement is obviously Defense and Turnovers, and a distant third would be shot selection. As is he is already a top 10-5 offensive player. If he can cut down on turnovers significantly that jumps to top 5-3, If he can get improve both turnovers, get his defense to be at a net neutral, and get his shooting up by a few percentage points then he is easily a legit MVP candidate. It's a tall order to be able to do all those things but with the right mentorship and coaching he can easily become that player by the time he reaches his prime years.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Atlantaholic

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

10 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect answer. If he would have said anything different, speculation would have started. Showing loyalty to CLP and avoided creating a rift against CLP.

[Gray Mule]

Hawks win because:   Well, there are several reasons.  One thing that I noticed and that was hardly mentioned

- - Celtics ran the ball inside and had a lay up drill in the 1st quarter and to a lesser extent in the 1st half.  Something happened to the Hawks defense because they began to collapse the defense inside and it was much harder to score.

In the dreaded 4th quarter, Hawks didn't.  What ever they did in the past, didn't happen.  Trae continued to play well.  We got, as I requested, last season's aggressive, scoring PG.  Remember, this was a BTB game for our host. Many Hawks played well.   

Skylar Mays has apparently become our back up point guard.  He's ready to come off that 2 way contract and become a regular.  Our 1st round pick, Agent 0017, appears to be a "wait til next year" project.  No summer league, no pre season and injured to begin the season has ruined his year.

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd Pierce!  Hope everything is going well.

What adjustments will Boston make Friday?  Will the Hawks also adjust?  We await the answers.

[Peoriabird]

So no credit to Nate...Wow!  Got some die hards on this message board!

[AHF]

16 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

So no credit to Nate...Wow!  Got some die hards on this message board!

Nate did a fine job yesterday.  Just have to recognize there isn't a lot you can change in 24 hours.  What Nate can do is game management and he seemed to do a fine job with that.  The schemes and the way players are employed which tend to be the biggest change drivers were all things we've seen in other games under LP.  That is just a function of the limitations of what anyone can do in this short a period of time.  

Nate may well show to have a steadier hand for game management and represent an upgrade on LP but one game does not a meaningful sample size make.  LP's record is pretty good when Trae scores big and you'd expect wins most of the time in that case regardless of who is behind the bench.

[AHF]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

According to NBA.com, his 59.8% TS% ranks 41st among all Guards and SFs with at least 15 min per game.  There's 173 qualified players so Trae is Top 75% of the NBA.  

On a PPS basis, his 1.497 pts per shot ranks 11th out of the top 150 scorers in the NBA so almost top 5% of NBA.  If you filter it down to players that actually attempt 10 or more shots per game, he's 6th in the NBA.

No matter how you slice it, it's inaccurate to say Trae is not an efficient scorer.  You can argue his FG% isn't high enough and that's fair, but as far as scoring goes, he's one of the most efficient players in the NBA.    

Going back to his scoring efficiency and TS% as that was what was originally cited, among the top 10 total points leaders in the league, Trae is more efficient as a scorer this season than 3 of those scorers:

Bradley Beal

Luka Doncic

Julius Randle (didn't expect him to be top 10 in total points)

The key to me for Trae continuing to improve his scoring efficiency is getting his floater working.  If he nails that down, both his efg% and ts% numbers will spike up if he continues with the rest of what he has done this year.

Notably, Trae has a higher TS% this year than he did in his breakout season last year.

[KB21]

7 minutes ago, AHF said:

Nate did a fine job yesterday.  Just have to recognize there isn't a lot you can change in 24 hours.  What Nate can do is game management and he seemed to do a fine job with that.  The schemes and the way players are employed which tend to be the biggest change drivers were all things we've seen in other games under LP.  That is just a function of the limitations of what anyone can do in this short a period of time.  

Nate may well show to have a steadier hand for game management and represent an upgrade on LP but one game does not a meaningful sample size make.  LP's record is pretty good when Trae scores big and you'd expect wins most of the time in that case regardless of who is behind the bench.

Yep.  It's hard to lose regardless of rotations when you shoot the ball like the Hawks did last night.  

[REHawksFan]

6 minutes ago, AHF said:

Going back to his scoring efficiency and TS% as that was what was originally cited, among the top 10 total points leaders in the league, Trae is more efficient as a scorer this season than 3 of those scorers:

Bradley Beal

Luka Doncic

Julius Randle (didn't expect him to be top 10 in total points)

The key to me for Trae continuing to improve his scoring efficiency is getting his floater working.  If he nails that down, both his efg% and ts% numbers will spike up if he continues with the rest of what he has done this year.

Notably, Trae has a higher TS% this year than he did in his breakout season last year.

Been saying the same thing. The only reason his fg% is down this year is the floater. His 3pt% has been slightly up most of the year. He could stand to raise it a little more though. Ideally for me, he'd be sitting at 38-40% 3pt and 50% overall. 

 

[kg01]

19 minutes ago, AHF said:

Nate did a fine job yesterday.  Just have to recognize there isn't a lot you can change in 24 hours.  What Nate can do is game management and he seemed to do a fine job with that.  The schemes and the way players are employed which tend to be the biggest change drivers were all things we've seen in other games under LP.  That is just a function of the limitations of what anyone can do in this short a period of time.  

Nate may well show to have a steadier hand for game management and represent an upgrade on LP but one game does not a meaningful sample size make.  LP's record is pretty good when Trae scores big and you'd expect wins most of the time in that case regardless of who is behind the bench.

Hawks win: "SEENATENEEDSTABEDACOACH!!!!"

Hawks lose: "AWTHATSJUST'CAUSEPEERCESUCKSSOTHETEAMWEREN'TPREPARED!!!"

[bleachkit]

One thing that concerns me is we shot that ball lights out last night, but yet we didn't have a dominant win. It's like we have to have our A game just to get a win, but other teams can eek out wins out even on off nights. 

[REHawksFan]

22 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

One thing that concerns me is we shot that ball lights out last night, but yet we didn't have a dominant win. It's like we have to have our A game just to get a win, but other teams can eek out wins out even on off nights. 

That's been the MO since last year hasn't it?  For the Hawks to win, they have to play almost flawlessly and even then it's usually a close win.  The only times that has been different is when they had a full roster earlier this year.  Then they had a few games where they didn't have to play perfect to win and if they did play really well, they won big.  

But the team on the court last night was basically the same caliber as last year's team with a little added defense due to Capela.  It's still a very flawed team until the injured guys get back.  That will give them some margin for error and still have opportunities to win.  

The story last night:

Celtics were +9 in FG attempts and +7 in 3pt attempts

You HAVE to shoot really well to win if you are going to allow your opponent 9 more opportunities to score.  They essentially gave the Celtics the potential to score 25 more points than the Hawks could possibly score.  

And before anyone screams TOs, the Hawks were +2 in TOs with 14 compared to Boston's 16.  The real culprit was O Reb and I would presume the hawks have more possessions end in FTs than Boston  

Edited February 18, 2021 by REHawksFan

[macdaddy]

I'll say that Nate's three C's comment is exactly right.   

I give him a lot of credit.  He managed the game and the guys well.   Still we have to recognized that the Celtics fielded a pretty weak team.   Even at full strength they are the type of team we can beat.   We need to figure out how to not get manhandled by teams like the Knicks and Raptors. 

Just glad we freed up Trae to dominate the game. 

[Peoriabird]

28 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

One thing that concerns me is we shot that ball lights out last night, but yet we didn't have a dominant win. It's like we have to have our A game just to get a win, but other teams can eek out wins out even on off nights. 

8 turnovers by your starting point guard will do that

[macdaddy]

3 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

8 turnovers by your starting point guard will do that

Trae has made some turnovers this year that seem so uncharacteristic.

But when you turn it over multiple times on the same possession by stealing it back should that really count as >1?  You didn't give the other team 2 more possessions.  

[Buzzard]

36 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

One thing that concerns me is we shot that ball lights out last night, but yet we didn't have a dominant win. It's like we have to have our A game just to get a win, but other teams can eek out wins out even on off nights. 

You do realize that was a 8 point win against Boston? The same team that has been to the ECF 3 out of the past 4 seasons. Yes they were down Theis, Smart, and Kemba. Yes we were down Bogdan. Hunter, Rondo, and Dunn.

I think it was fairly matched. They had Brown, Tatum, and Thompson. We had Trae, Collins, and Capela.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Buzzard

[macdaddy]

Any win in the NBA is a good win in my book.   It was a chance for Tatum and Brown to show they are an elite duo.   Tatum played well but he didn't make the difference the way Trae did.  Plus Tatum went to the line 11 times.   That ain't basketball.

[Atlantaholic]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

Been saying the same thing. The only reason his fg% is down this year is the floater. His 3pt% has been slightly up most of the year. He could stand to raise it a little more though. Ideally for me, he'd be sitting at 38-40% 3pt and 50% overall. 

 

50% is a huge ask for a player his size. I'd venture to say there hasn't been a single player that scored over 20ppg at 50% or better that is 6'2'' or shorter in the history of the game.

[Atlantaholic]

To me the benchmark for a player the size of Trae is 45%. If he can do that while continuing to get to the line he will be absolutely elite offensively. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Atlantaholic

[REHawksFan]

3 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

50% is a huge ask for a player his size. I'd venture to say there hasn't been a single player that scored over 20ppg at 50% or better that is 6'2'' or shorter in the history of the game.

Yeah.....I'm dumb.  I was actually thinking getting his floater up to 50% so the overall would be somewhere in the 40's.