Quin Snyder Breaks Down Hawks Rotation at Forward and starting lineup
Atlanta went on the road last night and had a tough loss to the Charlotte Hornets 116-110. One of the bright spots of the game last night was the play of third-year forward Jalen Johnson, who scored a career-high 21 points last night. Johnson was scoring the ball when given the opportunity and ran the floor well, with or without the ball, and that resulted in a few highlight plays:
Johnson played well, but the other two forwards. De'Andre Hunter and Saddiq Bey had their struggles in this game. The starting lineup has been a talking point for the Hawks this offseason and Hawks head coach Quin Snyder talked about it last night after the game:
"As hard as I have worked to educate everybody on the situation, clearly I have failed. Because it is not a binary question of Jalen or Saddiq. Maybe tonight will make that clear. There are times when it will be. One of them will be playing and the other won't. Those guys, and (De'Andre Hunter). Those three guys. All three of them were in there together tonight... They're different players, obviously, but they are both really good players in their own way. That is often the case. We've got a number of guys that you have those questions like "Who should I play?" and that is something that I think our team understands. Players always, I mean they'd like to play 48 minutes if they could, you know, but it is harder to do that. You tend to get a little tired. There was a couple of times tonight those guys were gassed, but I am glad you brought that up"
Quin Snyder coaching the Atlanta Hawks last night against the Charlotte Hornets
While the starting lineup is getting a lot of attention with how Johnson played last night and his potential growth this season, that is not at the top of the list of why the Hawks lost last night.
The Hawks are not going to win any games if both Trae Young and Dejounte Murray shoot a combined 7-33. The Hawks are built around their two star guards and if both of them have bad shooting nights, it is almost going to guarantee a loss. Young hit one three-pointer, but it came at the end of the game. He was not getting into the paint and hitting floaters either and it was just an overall struggle for him to put the ball in the basket. He was good at getting to the line, but it was not a normal game for either guard, I think they should be able to bounce back.
Young talked about his performance last night after the game:
"I think we played good in spurts, we had good moments, the offense has not clicked the way we want it to, even in the preseason it did not click the way that we wanted it to. I gotta play better, I mean, I don't want to put anything on my teammates. I don't wanna shoot like that. It's tough. I didn't wanna play like that, I'm not going to play like that so yeah it was a tough night for sure."
I think the talk of the starting lineup is being overblown just a little bit, but it is going to be a talking point if Johnson keeps flashing the way he did last night and this preseason.
Atlanta has their home opener tomorrow night against the Knicks.
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