Official Game Thread: Jazz at Hawks

[AHF]

40 minutes ago, sturt said:

I call your "baffled" and raise you a ...........

 

Sure, it's "good proof" if you can establish that Nate has a better (... and we all know that this part is important... we are talking about Nate "I Don't Trust Rooks" McMillan...) veteran... option.

You say "that goes double if someone believes Nate has better alternatives and is playing JDay over them."

Nahbabanah.

That "goes double if someone believes Nate believes that Nate has better alternatives."

Nate is Nate. Nate's gonna Nate.

Completely like him to not believe he has better alternatives until enough time has elapsed to build some trust/confidence. (And if we're honest, that's pretty much any head coach, or any of us in real life. AJ will eventually get there. Bud, I recall, drove many of us nuts that Prince didn't get minutes until after the ASG break. It's not just Nate.)

 

Get BogBog back, and watch JDay's minutes decline.

Get BogBog back plus at some point, see Nate get some confidence in his rookie wing?.... ...... watch JDay's minutes whittle down to that of a 3rd unit wing.

 

For now, there is no alternative in Nate's mind.

And I can't disagree, actually... AJ isn't just a rookie, he's one of the youngest players drafted this off-season. There's wisdom in not giving AJ too much. The surprise in how Nate's distributing minutes isn't about JDay's minutes. It's that he's giving the rookie so many minutes that he's cracked double digits per game (12 avg).

This early? Just 10 games into the season?

The writing is on the wall for Justin.

Could be that AJ's minutes-count is as much about Justin's decline as it is about the rookie's performance. One of Justin's hallmarks had always been that he's been good at on-ball defense, keeping his man in front of him. That hallmark took a hit in last night's game.

I know this much. Or I think I do. If there was some Nate quote that expressed explicit affection for Justin, I would have seen it quoted about three dozen times by now. AHF and Jay, in particular, seem to want to believe this so very badly. They could be right, of course. We can't read Nate's mind. But is there clear and present empirical Nate-generated (or Justin-generated for that matter) evidence. There is not.

 

 

 

 

That is a long way of saying what I've been saying all along.  Nate likes vets and having one who is familiar with his system will just about lock him into minutes over our young players.  I.e., Nate likes JHol.  That is why he is one of the top options off the bench.

For quotes, here is an AJC article from two days ago:

Quote

When the Hawks acquired Justin Holiday from the Kings during the offseason, coach Nate McMillan knew he was getting another trusted piece in the rotation.

 

Holiday’s consistency on defense and his approach to the game has instilled confidence in McMillan, who said that Holiday follows his off-nights by hitting the gym the next day to work himself into a rhythm.

 

McMillan added that Holiday has been invaluable to the Hawks and that the 10-year veteran’s shots will continue to fall.

“Well, that’s his game,” McMillan said. “He plays both sides of the ball. And, everybody has to condition themselves to be able to play their game. It’s still early in the season. I don’t think conditioning is a problem for him. It’s just one of those (things). You’re gonna have a couple of games where the shot may not fall for you, but you have to have confidence in yourself, you have to get in here and work on that. And I have confidence that it’s going to fall, which is what happened. He continued to work at it. We continued to get him the ball, and he knocked down some shots last night.”

https://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks/hawks-justin-holidays-defense-pays-off-with-strong-offensive-outing-vs-bucks/PM5EEGYOCZGXXMRICMGDMVJHPI/

Not sure why you are comparing people on this site to election deniers.  They had to ignore all the evidence from more than 60 lawsuits to continue their belief in a rigged election.  In contrast, the data is the whole thing driving my view. The trend is that he has been featured in the rotation of every team he has played on in recent years regardless of his numbers.   The trend is that Nate is giving him lots of minutes.  The data all supports the notion that Nate likes him.  The quotes do too but they don't mean as much to me as Nate's actions do.

[sturt]

14 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

just wanted to let you know that one of the best Hawks analysts has been a fan of Justin and thinks he will win people over.

While I follow GW and respect his work as a fan who does some game analysis, genuinely... his predictive work, I'm unacquainted with... and further, not sure that winning people over is the problem. Virtually every Hawks fan wants to see every Hawks player perform well. The performance of the player isn't a function of fans' attitude, but rather the other way around.

That said, I'd sure like to read for myself what GW wrote in this vein.... would it be possible to get a link? My initial scan didn't find anything in Twitter or on PTH.

Edit: I see the screenshot of tweets posted evidently while I was writing the previous post. Anything else?

 

[JayBirdHawk]

6 minutes ago, sturt said:

While I follow GW and respect his work as a fan who does some game analysis, genuinely... his predictive work, I'm unacquainted with... and further, not sure that winning people over is the problem. Virtually every Hawks fan wants to see every Hawks player perform well. The performance of the player isn't a function of fans' attitude, but rather the other way around.

That said, I'd sure like to read for myself what GW wrote in this vein.... would it be possible to get a link? My initial scan didn't find anything in Twitter or on PTH.

He was tweeting live during the Bucks game:

 

Followed by this:

 

 

[AtLaS]

I agree with the take that we played very similar defensively vs Utah as we did against the Bucks.  Bucks missed their shots, Jazz made theirs.  Make or miss league.  Our bench didn't explode and we didn't shoot well from 3 against the Jazz but we did against Milwaukee.

[sturt]

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

I've never denied a trend in him being less of a player than 3 years ago.

 

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

Just think you are reading too much into your numbers.

 

So, he's less of a player, but we wouldn't find evidence of that in any numbers.

Got it.

 

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

Take it up with Glen Willis:

And you want me to "take it up" with Glen Willis, who apparently has indeed predicted that we'll regard 33 year-old Justin's defense as highly as we did 29 year-old Delon's defense.

 

 

Yeah, um. What can I say? I think that's absurd to expect, given the realities of what we know. Glen Willis is a good guy, but good guys can make very specious, though hopeful, homer predictions sometimes.

 

 

[REHawksFan]

5 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Trae is struggling shooting to start the season...again! If my math is correct.......

Last season in his 1st 10 games:

33.6% from the field, 25.5% from 3

 

This season in his 1st 10 games:

37.8% from the field, 31.5% from 3

Do I like that he is struggling, no!

Am I worried - not yet!

Unto Philly!

To add to or expand on this:

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2018-10-17	2018-11-06	10	10	30.9	6.8	15.6	.436	1.8	6.3	.286	3.6	4.7	.766	0.6	2.6	3.2	8.1	0.4	0.3	4.0	1.8	19.0	13.1	-10.3

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2019-10-24	2019-11-14	10	10	33.7	9.0	19.7	.457	3.4	8.8	.386	5.9	7.3	.808	0.6	3.4	4.0	9.1	1.6	0.1	5.0	1.2	27.3	20.6	-1.9

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2020-12-23	2021-01-11	10	10	33.0	7.2	17.3	.416	1.7	5.7	.298	8.7	9.9	.879	1.3	2.6	3.9	8.5	0.5	0.1	4.3	2.0	24.8	18.2	7.3

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2021-10-21	2021-11-06	10	10	34.9	8.2	20.0	.410	1.6	5.6	.286	5.3	5.8	.914	0.6	3.0	3.6	9.6	0.8	0.2	3.4	1.2	23.3	17.5	-0.4

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2022-10-19	2022-11-09	10	10	35.1	8.8	23.3	.378	2.4	7.7	.312	7.6	8.3	.916	0.9	2.5	3.4	9.4	0.8	0.2	3.2	1.6	27.6	19.6	1.4

Trae's first 10 games in each of his 5 seasons as a Hawk. 

FG% - 43.6%, 45.7%, 41.6%, 41.0%, and 37.8%

3PT% - 28.6%, 38.6%, 29.8%, 28.6%, and 31.2%

Pts - 19.0, 27.3, 24.8, 23.3, and 27.6

Ast - 8.1, 9.1, 8.5, 9.6, and 9.4

TO - 4.0, 5.0, 4.3, 3.4, and 3.2

Aside from his Sophomore season, every year he's started slowly.  This is literally nothing to worry about.  This is why some get accused of having an agenda.  Every loss is a referendum on Trae. It gets old.    

Here's games 11-20 for each year:

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2018-11-07	2018-11-25	10	10	27.5	4.3	13.4	.321	1.0	5.3	.189	2.8	3.0	.933	0.3	2.2	2.5	7.2	0.9	0.3	3.8	1.1	12.4	7.4	-10.2

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2019-11-14	2019-11-30	10	10	35.3	9.3	20.9	.445	3.2	8.6	.372	7.0	7.8	.897	0.3	3.8	4.1	8.1	1.3	0.0	4.8	1.2	28.8	20.6	-12.9

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2021-01-15	2021-02-03	10	10	35.8	8.0	18.6	.430	2.9	6.9	.420	9.5	10.7	.888	0.3	4.1	4.4	9.5	1.0	0.3	4.1	2.2	28.4	22.4	3.3

First	Last	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	GmSc	+/-
2021-11-08	2021-11-26	10	10	32.1	9.9	18.9	.524	3.5	7.6	.461	4.6	5.2	.885	0.6	3.0	3.6	8.7	1.0	0.0	4.3	2.2	27.9	21.6	7.9

 

Excluding the rookie year, we see DRASTIC improvement across the board in his shooting %. Last season after having generally similar shooting numbers the first 10 games as this year, he shot 54.4% overall and 46.1% on 3s in the next 10.  People need to just relax.  

 

[sturt]

12 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

He was tweeting live during the Bucks game:

 

Followed by this:

 

 

Right. But that's not what Quest was citing... he was asserting that GW made some specific observations about Justin's defense.

Oh. Never mind.

Somehow our platform's code here sometimes fools me to think there's a tweet that's been posted, but it was actually posted a couple of threads before.

 

Thanks for that.

I did see that much.

Is that it?

[JayBirdHawk]

4 minutes ago, sturt said:

Right. But that's not what Quest was citing... he was asserting that GW made some specific observations about Justin's defense.

Oh. Never mind.

Somehow our platform's code here sometimes fools me to think there's a tweet that's been posted, but it was actually posted a couple of threads before.

 

Thanks for that.

I did see that much.

Is that it?

Then if you click on the tweet thread he says this later:

 

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

11 hours ago, NBASupes said:

It's the default go to because he's the worst defender in NBA history and impossible to defend with. Damn near made Kevin look like a scrub on that end which we see ain't the case in Sacramento 

I love Trae but his stans are far too delusional. His defense is the WOAT. His shooting been awful this year, part of the reason his WAR and other key stats where Trae is our best by a mile is down to average role player levels. While Trae is still an elite playmaker. When his shooting is terrible, so is his offense and his shot selection starts looking worse than Westbrook and Josh Smith. 

Our starting lineup is fine with Trae in the lineup.  His defense is not an issue with that group on the floor.  

It's the bench group where he's struggling to play with.  Specifically the Holiday Boys.

11 hours ago, NBASupes said:

I know dickriding is the thing for Trae stans but you gotta see, he's killing us out there. He's hurting the team more than anyone not named Justin Holiday. 

The biggest issue I see with other than missing some threes he normally makes is he cannot handle contact this year in the paint or outside of it. It's like he's a more crafty verison of who he was his first couple of months in the NBA as a rookie. To me, he's probably having his best playmaking season of his career. He's actually running the offense better than previous years and our turnovers are down because of it. 

Here we go with the classic Supes name calling.  But you speak of assumptions and not facts.  The Hawks are 112 pts per 100 possessions when the starters are out on the floor with Trae.  When we start playing the bench, his floor time numbers go down. 

And is it that he can't handle contact, or is he not getting the calls, especially on shooting fouls.  He's getting to the line 8 times a game ( it was 9 before last night ), but the refs don't want to have to call every foul for Trae.  It's obvious that the refs don't like him, so he's not going to get a call every time he gets hit, even if he legit gets hit.

11 hours ago, NBASupes said:

I do also think the lack of shooters around him outside of Dre is impacting him. That said, he needs recognized when he has a shooter out there like Griffin. Murray struggles with this more than Trae but both gotta do this.

We just got inconsistent chemistry is also what I see. 

He does recognize when he has a shooter out there with him like Griffin.  The problem is that Nate doesn't play him much with Trae, because he's throwing the Holiday boys in the game first.  The small sample size indicates that AJ may be his best scoring partner with the 2nd unit.

 

[sturt]

35 minutes ago, AHF said:

That is a long way of saying what I've been saying all along.  Nate likes vets and having one who is familiar with his system will just about lock him into minutes over our young players.  I.e., Nate likes JHol.  That is why he is one of the top options off the bench.

Then we were talking past each other.

Look, I took great pains to be very precise about why I wouldn't take you up on your proposed bet... I stated clearly that the reason any bet you would offer would fail to be able to measure Nate's affection for Justin is that we can't read Nate's mind to know how he judges AJ in comparison... while I believe the evidence would show that you suggested that even if Nate does consider AJ superior to Justin, Justin would still play just because Nate has that degree of bromance... and with that specific former player... you didn't generalize it. (Why not? Aaron is just as familiar to Nate as Justin is.)

 

35 minutes ago, AHF said:

For quotes, here is an AJC article from two days ago:

Quote

When the Hawks acquired Justin Holiday from the Kings during the offseason, coach Nate McMillan knew he was getting another trusted piece in the rotation.

 

Holiday’s consistency on defense and his approach to the game has instilled confidence in McMillan, who said that Holiday follows his off-nights by hitting the gym the next day to work himself into a rhythm.

 

McMillan added that Holiday has been invaluable to the Hawks and that the 10-year veteran’s shots will continue to fall.

“Well, that’s his game,” McMillan said. “He plays both sides of the ball. And, everybody has to condition themselves to be able to play their game. It’s still early in the season. I don’t think conditioning is a problem for him. It’s just one of those (things). You’re gonna have a couple of games where the shot may not fall for you, but you have to have confidence in yourself, you have to get in here and work on that. And I have confidence that it’s going to fall, which is what happened. He continued to work at it. We continued to get him the ball, and he knocked down some shots last night.”

https://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks/hawks-justin-holidays-defense-pays-off-with-strong-offensive-outing-vs-bucks/PM5EEGYOCZGXXMRICMGDMVJHPI/

I'm happy for you that Nate finally gave you some quotes so you don't have to keep hearing me recall that even Tony Snell got the benefit of Nate hyping his defense as-if so very strong.

Then again.

The pretext here would seem to be that Lauren is asking about why he continues to keep playing Justin in spite of his shots not falling.

He has been invaluable to the Hawks... they have no other vet wing alternatives. He does try at both ends of the floor, no question. One might even say he's been consistent defensively with some validity. But that's not saying he's been good defensively. That said, I don't doubt that Nate eventually will give Justin the Tony Snell treatment.... both verbally... and as the season wears on and Nate has better and trusted options available to him... in how many minutes Justin gets.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

7 hours ago, bleachkit said:

Trae is in one of the worst shooting slumps of his career. Fortunately, we have DJM to pick up the slack. Last night though, we just didn't execute in the 4th quarter.

It's a bad - good - bad slump he's in.

• first 2 games:  24 ppg on 30% FG - 25% 3FG
• next 4 games:  35 ppg on 46% FG - 39% 3FG
• last 4 games:   22 ppg on 33% FG - 27% 3FG

As long as he plays his game, and doesn't try to conform, I'm not worried. 

I'm convinced that something was said to him after that 42 point outburst in which the Hawks lost, then he came back ultra passive in the Toronto game.  

[JayBirdHawk]

25 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

Trae's first 10 games in each of his 5 seasons as a Hawk. 

FG% - 43.6%, 45.7%, 41.6%, 41.0%, and 37.8%

3PT% - 28.6%, 38.6%, 29.8%, 28.6%, and 31.2%

Pts - 19.0, 27.3, 24.8, 23.3, and 27.6

Ast - 8.1, 9.1, 8.5, 9.6, and 9.4

TO - 4.0, 5.0, 4.3, 3.4, and 3.2

  Good Stuff

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

 Nate did give AJ 10 minutes of run.  I will say that I would have liked to see AJ play with Trae some instead of being the substitute for Trae.  In both runs that AJ got, Trae came out when he did and AJ came out when Trae entered.  Would like to see some mix with that.

The data supports your intuition, sir.

[sturt]

50 minutes ago, AHF said:

The trend is that he has been featured in the rotation of every team he has played on in recent years regardless of his numbers.

Um. Yeah. So consult your Research Methods 501 textbook and help me understand... was he not "featured" at age 30 when he had his last good-to-very-good season?... was he then not featured at age 31?... at age 32?

So, the trend is that he's regressed. He's gotten older. But he was still a prominent member in each of the previous three seasons... that part doesn't matter.

50 minutes ago, AHF said:

Not sure why you are comparing people on this site to election deniers. 

Now c'mon.

I have a person telling me that "sure he's not the same player" on the one hand... then... saying "but that's not to say there's any correlation with numbers."

That's denial... and it's denial that there is quantitative/objective data that support the conclusion the person otherwise acknowledges is legit. He just doesn't like the degree to which that data indicate there's been regression.

What can I say to that? That's trend denial. Facts don't care about one's feelings, as one politico is famous/infamous for stating.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 hours ago, macdaddy said:

I agreed with your whole post but not so sure about this.  AJ played, not a lot, but that could be because he sucked last night.  He's a rookie he's going to suck sometimes but i certainly wasn't screaming for more AJ.  He was the last bench guy to leave the game in the fourth quarter i'm pretty sure.  

AJ is a shooter. And it'll be to his advantage if he can play with guys that can get him the ball in the best spots possible.  Dejounte is capable of this.  But the rest of the bench have to be willing to get him the ball in good spots as well.  The Holiday boys look for their own shots. JJ sometimes is just like a deer in headlights, and really doesn't know what to do with the ball. 

Once again though, the coach can run plays for AJ, to possibly get him the ball.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

 

Despite it being a bad decision to go 1 on 5, was he not fouled on that play?

And if Nate really wanted the timeout, he could've gotten it.

Definitely a forced play by Trae.  Still shouldn't have given up the 3 on the other end, with everyone back.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

3 hours ago, benhillboy said:

I’m slick disappointed in OO so far.  Last season he was +5.2 and +4.4.  The energy still plays but it’s time to add some skills.

That's a direct product to whom he's playing with.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 hour ago, Hawkmoor said:

Murray is currently 7th in NBA plus-minus at +6.6 .  +3.4 on offense and +3.3 on defense.

Capela is the next closest Hawk at 45th ranking in NBA with +3.4  -2.2 on offense and +5.7 on defense.

Young is the next Hawk ranked 72nd  in NBA  at +1.1 with a +5.2 on offense and -4.0 on defense.

Thats the Hawks big 3 so far.  The biggest drop offs on defense occur whenever Young -4.0 or Justin Holiday -3.8 or on the floor.  The biggest gains on offense are when Young at + 5.2 or Murray at +3.4 are on the floor. 

 

 

Finally!  A critic of Trae actually using DATA to give analysis of what is going on.  This is exactly what is happening out on the floor.

I'm so proud of you @Hawkmoor

 

[JeffS17]

This thread got exhausting quick lol time to go to the Sixers game thread team

[dalamchops]

5 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

https://videos.nba.com/nba/pbp/media/2022/11/09/0022200162/600/fc5ae3a1-5fe2-c198-d0bb-c1bb3c3d337c_1280x720.mp4

 

thanks, i was at the game so didn't know if bob/nique caught it live.