Hawks' Momentum Falls Flat Against Undermanned Wizards
Most of the momentum the Hawks accumulated during their best five-game stretch of the season came to a full halt on Friday night as Atlanta recorded its 31 loss of the season to the Washington Wizards. After defeating the Magic and Pacers and playing the Celtics, Nuggets, and Rockets close, Atlanta let its guard down in D.C., failing to play with the necessary effort to capturing what should have been a winnable game.
“We didn’t compete tonight,” Lloyd Pierce said after the game. “We were sloppy from the beginning. In a game where we ended up with 62 points in the paint, we knew we could get whatever we wanted, we got whatever we wanted, and didn’t have the focus, didn’t have the competitiveness that we needed. We didn’t compete tonight, and it’s frustrating.”
That lack of effort showed up in the game and in the numbers. Atlanta was awful defending in transition, allowing the Wizards to run on over 40 percent of their defensive rebounds, according to Cleaning the Glass. Washington scored 1.29 points per possession in transition, largely because the Hawks simply failed to get back on defense. The Wizards grabbed 19 offensive rebounds (35 percent of their misses) and scored 29 second-chance points, often because Atlanta neglected to pursue the ball. Many of the Hawks’ 18 turnovers were a product of carelessness, and as a result the Wizards attempted 23 more shots than their opponent.
Some of that comes down to bad luck – bad bounces, long rebounds, untimely turnovers – but most of those numbers were directly tied to the Hawks’ energy level. Had they cared to do something about Washington’s dominance in the effort-related areas of the game, they could have. Instead, they folded when they had a chance to turn the game in their favor. Atlanta’s shot selection and decision-making deteriorated down the stretch as the Wizards rattled off a 17-4 run late in the fourth quarter that all but sealed the game.
“We took some shots that we didn’t need to,” Pierce said. “We stopped setting screens, we stopped rolling, we tried to find the home runs and the easy way out, and this wasn’t one of those games where you need the easy way out.”
“We didn’t finish the game very well,” said Kevin Huerter, who had 16 points in 26 minutes before fouling out. “It was like how we started, just flat. They were getting every offensive rebound, they were missing shots, they were getting them back, they were out-hustling us, beating us to fifty-fifty balls. And that was really kind of how the whole night went.”
Atlanta held an advantage in several key statistical categories and, in many ways, outplayed the Wizards for most of the contest. The Hawks attempted a higher percentage of its shots at the rim and from 3, shot a far higher effective field goal percentage, and, frankly had more available talent on its roster. But the number of injured Wizards seemed to cause Atlanta to let its guard down while Washington played with exactly the kind of hunger and intensity a shorthanded team should. It’s easy to rise to the occasion, as the Hawks have, against the NBA’s best teams. But for some reason, Atlanta is still searching for a way to replicate that competitive spirit against weaker opponents and has therefore sunk below even the teams it still doesn’t take seriously.
“[Washington] is undermanned and everybody that has an opportunity is playing hard, and they don’t care that they’re undermanned,” Pierce said. “Nothing was a surprise.”
