Peachtree Hoops: Bogdanovic, Hawks battle Bucks but size disadvantage too great to overcome

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Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

A much better second half couldn’t save this game.

Atlanta was unable to extend a four-game winning streak — including two wins over the NBA-leading Boston Celtics — on Saturday evening against the Milwaukee Bucks. Despite 38 points from Bogdan Bogdanovic, the Hawks fell 122-113 at State Farm Arena.

The Hawks came into Saturday night’s game at a massive size disadvantage against the exactly wrong team. With neither Jalen Johnson nor Onyeka Okongwu available, Atlanta’s options for trying to slow down Giannis Antetokounmpo were extremely limited. Antetokounmpo went on to drop 36 points and 16 rebounds against the likes of De’Andre Hunter, Clint Capela, and Bruno Fernando doing their best to slow him down.

That size disadvantage even extended to the offensive end as well, where Atlanta was too fearful of the Antetokounmpo-Lopez frontcourt to get to the rim with any regularity. In the first half alone, the Hawk attempted five shots inside the restricted area and 23 shots inside the arc but outside the restricted area. Here’s what that looked line in shot chart form:

After jumping out to a 12-6 lead in the first quarter, the sledding got much tougher when trying to challenge the Bucks interior defense. Along with having two of the best rim protectors in the league, Milwaukee also has a freight train available for easy transition points.

Here, the block by Brook Lopez leads to Antetokounmpo leading a fastbreak. With all eyes on him, Patrick Beverley is able to knock down a catch-and-shoot corner three.

Patrick Beverley is able to get deep off a perimeter screen and find the proper wraparound pass for a cutting Giannis. There’s just nothing Dejounte Murray nor Vit Krejci can do here as help defenders other than maybe to foul.

Even mixing in a 2-3 zone couldn’t get the job done, as Antetokounmpo is able to draw Capela out and find Lopez sealing off Bogdanovic for an easy score.

The Hawks did a poor job of sharing the ball in the early portion of the contest. They recorded just six assists on 17 made field goals in the first half, leaning on isolation play to try to generate points.

Even though Dejounte Murray was able to get some space with his shoulder below, this is a tough self-created turnaround attempt from distance.

Still, the Hawks were further beset by rough shooting luck — something out of their control. They endured a 0-for-13 shooting streak from three that spanned the first, second, and third quarters. That misfortune turned around in the second half, but Atlanta really needed to have a hot shooting game all the way throughout to have a chance in this one given the circumstances.

But head coach Quin Snyder was less concerned with accuracy and more so with the process of getting to shots, saying, “we can’t pass up shots. I know we shot 35 threes. If we pass up a shot, unless it’s a quick decision and it’s a drive and hopefully another shot, when they’re that big at the rim, it just makes it really hard.”

After starting with Capela on Giannis Antetokounmpo and Hunter on Lopez, the Hawks switched that matchup in the second half. About the frontcourt assignments rotating during the game, Snyder had this to say, “We wanted to try to put more size on [Antetokounmpo]. You saw [Hunter] and [Matthews] battling him...I didn’t think we executed as well in the first half. And some of that could have been because we were crossmatched. But we’ll watch the tape.”

After being down by as much as 21, the Hawks led by Bogdan Bogdanovic did their best to chip away at the deficit.

‘Bogi’ used two perimeter screens to draw Lopez in as his defender in the clip that follows. He gets to the edge of the paint with help from a Capela seal on Antetokounmpo.

Two Bucks defenders blitz Dejounte Murray here. ‘Bogi’ then takes advantage of a Bruno Fernando cross screen to drive on Bobby Portis for two.

Below is yet another good seal from Fernando, which opens up space for Bogdanovic’s drive.

The Hawks were able to rally to within five points after Bogdanovic successfully targets Lopez in drop coverage off a Fernando screen.

“They’re so big,” Snyder said bluntly about the opposition after the game. “If you’re in transition, you have a chance to attack right away. It was [Dejounte Murray] and [Bogdan Bogdanovic] doing the creating, but it was after we got some movement. Had the ball move where we were attacking a defense that wasn’t set.”

“We had some really good possessions where we didn’t score,” Snyder continued. “But the possessions did feel different in the second half. We started doing a good job reading our pick-and-roll coverages as well. When Lopez is way back, when Portis is up. Those things are all growth opportunities. To get to the point where we’re down five out of that one timeout, in a lot of ways that was big. For us to battle back like that, and it’s a five point game. It would have been easy to capitulate when you’re looking at 7-foot, 7-foot-2, 6-foot-9. That’s a big team. And we battled.”

Five points was as close as the game ever got, however, as the Bucks were able to assert their will and close the game in the last seven minutes.

The threat of a Giannis roll here drags both Hunter and Krejci away from Khris Middleton, who drains a pull up triple.

A Hawks turnover and a Brook Lopez three the very next possession pushed the margin back to 11 points — and Atlanta never again threatened to take the lead.

“The fact that Lopez can space [the floor], it impacts your matchups,” explained Snyder. “If you put a smaller guy on him, well now he’s taking you right to the rim. It makes it difficult to help on [Antetokounmpo] or on Middleton on a lot of those back down/post up and isolation situations. And for us, if we don’t have size, when you do help sometimes they’re looking over the top of you.”

“They’re hard to guard when those guys are in isolation and post up and they have shooting around them,” he went on. “And then where they position their 5. If Lopez is on the top of the floor feeding the post, it makes it real hard for [Capela] to help. So a lot going on in that regard. And that’s why I felt like we were right there. I was pleased that we competed to get to that point.”

After a couple of last gasp scores when the game was basically decided, Bogdanovic came away from this game with 38 points on 12-for-23 shooting, the second-most points he’s ever scored in a game in his career. ‘Bogi’ dropped 40 earlier this season in a December road loss to the Denver Nuggets to represent his career-high.

Despite the loss, the Hawks have to feel good about the five-game homestand they just completed — one where they refused to go away even when top teams had them on the ropes. They obliterated a bad Hornets team by a season-high 41-point margin. They finished off a 30-point comeback to the Celtics, and then turned around and hung on in overtime to beat them three days later. This was all despite a Celtics rest advantage with the Hawks having beaten Portland in the interim.

So a loss to a really good Bucks team, even missing Damian Lillard, isn’t too hard to stomach — especially given the fight back from down 21. The offensive process was much better in the second half, with 18 assists on 25 makes — a much improved ratio as compared to the first half.

The lack of size on the team — an issue often alluded and one exasperated by the current injuries — will have to be addressed in the offseason. But the Hawks continue to show they can hang with just about any opponent on a given night in the NBA despite the many reasons they shouldn’t.

The next game for the Atlanta Hawks is an unexpectedly big one. Atlanta travels to Chicago Monday to play the Bulls in a big deciding game towards 9-seed/10-seed status for the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament.

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