Three-Point Play: Road Trip Culminates With Loss To Lakers
Only a brief third-quarter push kept the Hawks from being demolished for the second time in as many days. Instead, Atlanta was merely blown out by the Lakers 122-101, for its fourth loss of a five-game road trip and sixth defeat in seven games. The Hawks are feeling the losses of three rotation players and the resulting fatigue to their available players, and a grueling five-game swing against in West did nothing to keep them fresh over a taxing stretch. Everyone has been pressed into heavier duty to fill the shoes of John Collins, Kevin Huerter, and Vince Carter, but a team that relies so heavily on rookies and reclamation projects can only sustain so many blows before it collapses. Throw those players into the final leg of a long road trip against NBA title contenders, and the games are nearly dead on arrival.
“This is one of many tests we’ll have throughout the year,” Lloyd Pierce said. “We knew coming out west for a five-game trip as a young team and the caliber of opponents we were playing it was going to be tough.” This is life in the NBA. Most every team faces some kind of stretch similar to the one Atlanta just finished off – even those with similar youth and talent – but that doesn’t offer much consolation while the team actually goes through the nadirs of a season.
The Hawks will recover from this weekend’s showing, especially as they piece their rotation back together, and it’s hard to judge the team on the basis of a few shorthanded performances. Losses like these are part of the process for young teams, and all the Hawks can do now is get back to work and hope to grow from the experience. “Win or loss, we still have a lot of work to do,” Pierce said. “We’ve got to stay together, we’ve got to get back into the gym and work, and we’ll get home and try and find some comfort on Wednesday.”
Here are three potentially meaningful observations from the weekend before the Hawks put a brutal road trip behind them.
The rookies, slowly looking more comfortable
De’Andre Hunter was a rare bright spot for Atlanta the last five games, averaging 12.6 points and playing solid defense in every game of the trip. He struggled from the field at times, but Hunter looked as comfortable as ever working with the ball in his hands and finishing at the rim, and quietly defended LeBron James admirably despite a characteristically gaudy line from the forward. Hunter is already Atlanta’s primary defensive option on wings and a featured secondary ball-handler. Outside of Trae Young and Jabari Parker, he has been the Hawks’ most consistent player this season – no small feat for a rookie being asked to handle as much as Hunter is.
On Sunday, Hunter mostly kept James out of the paint when the two matched up and largely maintained solid position against the four-time MVP. James had a clear strength advantage, but Hunter didn’t allow himself to be bullied in the way other young wings have been against LeBron. Offensively, he got downhill a few times and finished over L.A.’s imposing length – including a powerful left-handed dunk
Consistency has been harder to come by for Cam Reddish, who has been one of the most damaging offensive players in basketball this season. His road trip included four intense struggles before a momentary breakthrough against the Lakers. He finished the game with 13 points on 13 shots, but the rookie played the best 12 minutes of his career in the third quarter Sunday night. For that brief stretch, the game seemed to slow down for Reddish, who nabbed three steals and showed a level of patience he has mostly lacked in the NBA.
Reddish’s promising flashes have always been as glaring as his weaknesses, and his rookie year has been defined more by the latter than the former. Every so often, he flashes some of the promise that led Atlanta to take him 10 in the draft. The challenge both for him and for Pierce will be coaxing that out of him more often.
Evan Turner, plugging holes
The lack of a reliable secondary playmaker was perhaps the most prominent of Atlanta’s weaknesses on the recent road trip. Hunter has looked good at moments but isn’t quite ready to consistently guide efficient possessions with the ball in his hands, and Huerter’s injury against Denver left the Hawks with virtually no shot creation outside of Young’s. That makes Evan Turner’s return to the court a significant development for Atlanta’s backcourt, which had been using Reddish and De’Andre Bembry to initiate offense when Young and Hunter sat.
Turner is a heavily flawed offensive player, but the mere ability to create offense for himself and others off the dribble gives him heightened utility in the Hawks’ rotation. He won’t pose a threat to shoot the ball and cramps the floor without the ball, but Turner can settle the offense in second units and generate good looks out of nothing – something no other Hawk (excluding Young) can really do at the moment. Pierce briefly played Young and Turner together for a while against the Lakers – a pairing that could help alleviate pressure from Young until Huerter or Carter returns.
Defensively, Turner offers more versatility than Atlanta’s other backup wings and bigs; if Pierce doesn’t like the returns on the Bruno Fernando and Alex Len frontcourt, he could just as easily have Turner defend power forwards and play Allen Crabbe on the wing. Both Turner and Crabbe’s places in the rotation could come into question once the Hawks get their full complement back (which won’t happen for at least 17 more games), but for the time being, Turner means more to the team than most could have imagined when the season began.
Star wing talent has no substitute
If there was a theme to the Hawks’ two losses in Los Angeles, it was the dominant play of superstar wings. First it was Paul George, torching Atlanta for 37 points in 20 minutes on Saturday, then James, who went for 33 points and 12 assists without a turnover. Star talent is the great separator in the NBA, and when it’s distributed to supersized guards like James, George, and Kawhi Leonard, there’s simply no answer to it. Dominant and captivating as Young has been this season, he currently sits a class below the league’s absolute superstars. He notched 31 points and seven assists against the Lakers, but James and George simply control the game in a different way.
Elite scorers and playmakers are valuable at any size, but they’re all the more indomitable when they can shoot over any defender and defend multiple positions on defense. It’s the rare player who can combine that sort of size with the necessary skills to be an offensive focal point, but they make all the difference.
