Official Game Thread: Hawks at Celtics

[Spud2nique]

Thought we started out great in terms of coming out of the gate and getting after it, then we took our foot off the pedal and let the refs calls get to us as well.

 

Few worrisome issues on my mind:

 

1. We jumped on Nate like horny teen at the prom. We should have let it play out. Nate needs improvement and take a few risks and actually make unpredictable plays, the league knows what we comin with every night, they are ready for it.

2. There are 4 quarters to a game. Then there are the last minute of each quarter. I’m not sure we play being aware of what the score is, either that or we let our guard down. It’s like we are waiting to get punched in the mouth after we punched and should have KO’d.

3. I’m a little concerned about Hunter. I was a bit concerned about Cam and kept quiet. Alex Len said Hunter is baby Kawhi, I don’t see this right now. Kawhi is a consistent grinder, Hunter makes spectacular moves but it’s super inconsistent.

4. Trae, Huerter, Hunter and JC need to GET IN THE WEIGHT ROOM. I think we give up leads because when times get critical in the game, the opposing teams knows they can take our lunch money. Our guys gotta get stronger.

5. LOVED BOGI being aggressive and talking $hit back to that fan when he got hot. It’s Nate’s job to get him more looks.

Nobody is gonna feel sorry for us. We dug ourselves a hole, let’s get out.

GO HAWKS!

Edited February 14, 2022 by Spud2nique

[Spud2nique]

Bogi to the fan like … 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Spud2nique

[terrell]

7 hours ago, NBASupes said:

If I am the Hawks, this is my squad next year

Trae

Kevin

Eason

Anthony Davis http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y8bsajfr

Ayton SnT Capela, future 1sts and JJ 

 

Bench

Resign Wright

Eric Gordon http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y9oafx8k

SF, free agency 

free agent PF, idk, someone who fits and cheap. 

Okongwu 

 

3rd

Cooper

Mays

Snell

???

???

AD too injury prone.. How about Siakam? And no way I want Kev as our starting 2 guard next season.. Nope.. Trae Huerter is a free pass to the rim... I like Kevin a s a rotation player, but he doesnt show up enough......

Edited February 14, 2022 by terrell

[Gray Mule]

Spud's list - #3.  Hunter is very good.  Yet he allows some of that "little boy" come out and commits the foolish foul.  Am I the only one to notice?  He gets beat on a play.  He tries to fix it.  Too late!  Let it go.  Perhaps someone has said something (we don't know) and he's trying to get even.

Time for him to put on his "big boy pants" and learn to overcome this.  

Maybe I'm seeing things that isn't there.  Comments.

[REHawksFan]

9 hours ago, NBASupes said:

That's because a lot of these guys get open 3s. Even if they make 2 out of 5. Those three he might have missed that was open stand out heavily and you almost want a McDermott who's like 43% at wide open 3s which is freaking insane. League average on wide open 3s is like 33%. Not that high at all and the Hawks have a top 3 in the NBA percent at open 3s. It's just that we get so many compared to the norm and we take so few 3s in general so they standout.

We get so many because of Trae.  Which is why I'm not following how the wing issue is Trae's fault.  He literally creates open looks for wings.  You say they need touches to get into a rhythm, but they do get touches.  How many times have we seen Kevin or Hunter pass up wide open shots?  A bunch.  So they get touches, they just don't do anything with them a lot of times.  

So again, I'm not sure how Trae is hurting them like you say.  

And a better question is, what can Trae do to help them EVEN MORE to succeed iyo?  Trae is a legit top 3 offensive player in the NBA.  You don't get there by just being a one trick pony.  Trae has diversity in his game and can do multiple things. Why not alter the offense to help the wings get in rhythm more if that's what's needed?  

[Mikey]

This game and the entire season have been an indictment on nate mcmillian. He did not run his own system last year (added some of his own wrinkles) and it worked. This season he started the season running his offense with too many mid range shots and we started 4-9. 

And he has yet to change his defensive scheme all year. Prioritizing the paint over three point shooting. Our players constantly over help giving up wide open threes time and time again. The scheme is trash and this is what happens when you add a loser to be the head coach.

As long as he is the head coach you guys can kiss a championship good bye. We are first round exits if we even can make the playoffs in a deep east. This dude is absolute garbage and I said time and time again they should not hire him.

[macdaddy]

In 6 games/190 minutes in February, Huerter hasn't been to the free throw line.    Hunter/Huerter have been a terrible wing duo for quite a few games now.   You can't win games that way.   

[NBASupes]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

We get so many because of Trae.  Which is why I'm not following how the wing issue is Trae's fault.  He literally creates open looks for wings.  You say they need touches to get into a rhythm, but they do get touches.  How many times have we seen Kevin or Hunter pass up wide open shots?  A bunch.  So they get touches, they just don't do anything with them a lot of times.  

So again, I'm not sure how Trae is hurting them like you say.  

And a better question is, what can Trae do to help them EVEN MORE to succeed iyo?  Trae is a legit top 3 offensive player in the NBA.  You don't get there by just being a one trick pony.  Trae has diversity in his game and can do multiple things. Why not alter the offense to help the wings get in rhythm more if that's what's needed?  

Open looks and quality touches aren't the same. I went through this years back covering Westbrook and I gotta do it again for Trae. You can't pound the rock and just expect guys to make shots because they are open. They gotta be in the flow of the offense. 

Watch GS especially with Draymond. They get so many quality touches. Everyone, especially Wiggins. In Atlanta, only JC and Clint get quality touches. Clint barely does shit with it if he's not in a dunkers spot and JC gotten better but still doesn't do enough. If you notice, we don't get a lot of screen assist for a team that does PnRs as much as we do whereas PHX gets a tons. 

Anyone can get a touch, a quality touch is an action oriented touch. You can do shit with it other than just a quick decision. That's what I continue to see with us offensively. The thing is, Trae Ball is extremely efficient and successful but it lacks diversity, its spammy, cookie cutter, and it's not a high quality style. 

While Trae Ball is the most option free Ball of all of them for that said player, Harden, Luka, Bron, etc... it's the most limiting for the other players. There is limited freedom in Trae Ball. Conductor Ball aka CP3 ball is also is limited as he does the thinking for you, you do have freedom within actions like playing with Tom Brady. You don't have that with Trae. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by NBASupes

[marco102]

5 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Open looks and quality touches aren't the same. I went through this years back covering Westbrook and I gotta do it again for Trae. You can't pound the rock and just expect guys to make shots because they are open. They gotta be in the flow of the offense. 

Watch GS especially with Draymond. They get so many quality touches. Everyone, especially Wiggins. In Atlanta, only JC and Clint get quality touches. Clint barely does shit with it if he's not in a dunkers spot and JC gotten better but still doesn't do enough. If you notice, we don't get a lot of screen assist for a team that does PnRs as much as we do whereas PHX gets a tons. 

Anyone can get a touch, a quality touch is an action oriented touch. You can do shit with it other than just a quick decision. That's what I continue to see with us offensively. The thing is, Trae Ball is extremely efficient and successful but it likes diversity, its spammy, cookie cutter, and it's not a high quality style. 

While Trae Ball is the most option free Ball of all of them for that said player, Harden, Luka, Bron, etc... it's the most limiting for the other players. There is limited freedom in Trae Ball. Conductor Ball aka CP3 ball is also is limited as he does the thinking for you, you do have freedom within actions like playing with Tom Brady. You don't have that with Trae. 

This sounds like a coaching and scheme problem to me.

[Spud2nique]

50 minutes ago, Mikey said:

This dude is absolute garbage and I said time and time again they should not hire him.

Ya but you weren’t even here back then were you? 

[hylndr11]

Ive soured on hunter as well,  well first off , get this out of the way, Nate didn't come in and install his system and we can't run it and he just refuses to try to go back, Im still in the heavy side of the argument that in our situation unless were talking about Pop or something bringing another coach isn't going to fix these issues. 

Back to it - just playing devil's advocate here, Hunter being what he is, isn't totally off the rails yet, it wasn't till year 4 for kawhi he really started to be 2 way, as in year 2 and 3 he was at 11 and 12 pts on average with 30m playing.  There been some real good stuff written on kawhis development.  He was playing good def from the start, and I'm not saying Hunter is going to be KL ppl, I'm just using his dev as an example.  Not to mention KL got way more playing time than DH has.

During that stretch last year Hunter was ahead of where KL was looking in year 2. So that was obviously a combo of him catching ppl off guard and being on a good streak, kl had those was well

Edited February 14, 2022 by hylndr11

[macdaddy]

Trae was 9-26 from the floor.  The rest of the starting lineup was 12-35.   But yeah let's blame Trae.  Our starting wings combined for 7 made baskets in 65 minutes of play and went to the free throw line ZERO times.   How is that even possible?  

We have a wing problem.  We can blame everyone else but Hunter and Huerter are playing soft as hell

[NBASupes]

7 minutes ago, marco102 said:

This sounds like a coaching and scheme problem to me.

It's nothing you can do about it as a coach. You pull control from Trae and you lose the offense altogether. Trae is gonna do it his way and that's final. We seen when Trae is like, okay, you think you know better and the offense looks like shit.

[NBASupes]

2 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Trae was 9-26 from the floor.  The rest of the starting lineup was 12-35.   But yeah let's blame Trae.  Our starting wings combined for 7 made baskets in 65 minutes of play and went to the free throw line ZERO times.   How is that even possible?  

We have a wing problem.  We can blame everyone else but Hunter and Huerter are playing soft as hell

You will always have a wing problem in Atlanta as long as Trae is here.

[Spud2nique]

Just now, macdaddy said:

Hunter and Huerter

Weak sauce. Man up and take responsibility for your man on D. Huerter more so, Hunter still got that great D, offense lagging.

[macdaddy]

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

You will always have a wing problem in Atlanta as long as Trae is here.

We've seen plenty of evidence that this isn't true.  In fact, Bogi didn't have a problem last night.   Bogi/Kev were excellent for us last year and in the playoffs.   These guys are playing with no confidence and avoiding taking it to the rim.   Fadeaways and bad shots.  You can't pin all that crap on Trae. 

[shakes]

8 hours ago, Spud2nique said:

Bogi to the fan like … 

 

 

 

 

would be cool if Bogi payed this much attention to the people who keep beating him for back door cuts.

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, shakes said:

would be cool if Bogi payed this much attention to the people who keep beating him for back door cuts.

Very true put i'll still take his aggressiveness over Hunter and Huerter being scared to score the ball or take any contact. 

[NBASupes]

Just now, macdaddy said:

We've seen plenty of evidence that this isn't true.  In fact, Bogi didn't have a problem last night.   Bogi/Kev were excellent for us last year and in the playoffs.   These guys are playing with no confidence and avoiding taking it to the rim.   Fadeaways and bad shots.  You can't pin all that crap on Trae. 

No we haven't. That's why I continue to bark about it. 

Bogi and Kev wasn't excellent in the playoffs last year. They were maddeningly inconsistent. They had some good games but they had a lot of clunkers too. 

That 2nd half shit shouldn't even count. They got quality touches especially Bogi due to that 1/5 PnR destroying defeisnve schemes last year. Teams were scrambling in March and couldn't adjust no matter who was the wings for Atlanta. They did start to figure it out to a degree in April and we had a freebie schedule in May. In the playoffs, that 1/5 PnR wasn't all that effective and I worried about that coming into the year but looked passed it when I shouldn't have. 

Trae gets the accolades of the efficiency of the offense. Being a generational offensive engine and offensive machine. You can't give him all of the love and not address the downside. 

Fans on here want others to play like it's a video game and that's not realistic.

[Spud2nique]

Huerter gets waaaayyyyyy too much slack from squawk. He needs to stop being a lil trick b and man the F up already. 
 

It’s not ok to let the burden fall on Trae man, DO SOMETHING HUERTER! 
 

Seriously, why does Huerter get a free pass from a lot of youse people? 

Why?