Hawks Stunned on the road by the Bulls: Five Things The Box Score Won't Tell You

After winning four straight games and surging to fourth in the Eastern Conference (where they still are this morning, to be fair), the Atlanta Hawks have lost two straight games, and none were more discouraging than the loss on the road to a Chicago Bulls team that not only was missing rookie phenom Caleb Wilson, but had the worst net rating in the NBA. It was not a good night for Quin Snyder's crew and given that they have games against the Thunder, Pistons, and Celtics coming up, this was a missed opportunity to get a win in the bag ahead of what will be tougher tests.

What the Box Score Tells You

Three-point shooting discrepancy: The biggest reason why the Atlanta Hawks lost this game was that they could not hit three-point shots consistently, finishing 8-for-40 for the night, while the Bulls were 20-for-50, including four from Patrick Williams, who was only hitting 12% of his threes heading into the night. When a team outscores you by 36 from three, it is hard to win.

Hawks dominated in the paint: The recipe for the Hawks this season has not always been to win in the paint, but by out-shooting the opponent. Tonight, Atlanta outscored the Bulls 66-46 in the paint, but they could not muster enough from three to make it count.

Jalen Johnson triple-double: Jalen Johnson has not had the start to the season that he wanted, though the numbers don't look terrible. But if you are watching closely, he has had little to no impact on the game and while that was not always true last night vs. the Bulls, he finished as a +2 in a game that the Hawks lost by eight. He did not shoot the ball well and had a problem with turnovers as well, but he was not why the Hawks lost.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker's off night: NAW has been one of the NBA's best shooters and scorers at the guard position this season, but last night was not one of his finer games. In fact, it could be his worst one as an Atlanta Hawk. He finished 1-for-11 from three, missing several open looks, had three turnovers, and was a -14 in his minutes. Better nights are ahead, but his poor play was costly vs. the Bulls.

What the Box Score Does not Tell You

Hawks had a chance to win it in regulation: With the game tied at 110-110, the Hawks had possession of the ball and a chance to win the game and avoid an embarrassing loss. Quin Snyder is one of the best in the NBA at drawing up out-of-bounds plays, and he had a brilliant one that was designed to get the ball to Aaron Wiggins near the basket to win the game with a layup. Wiggins was in perfect position and had a great look, but the ball went through his hands, and that was the game.

Lu Dort taking the offense out of rhythm: It was another off night for Lu Dort, who was a -10 in his 19 minutes, and one thing that Dort is not afraid to do is shoot the ball. But when he is not making shots, which is the case more often than not, then he is killing the flow of the Hawks' offense. More than once, Dort was taking 15-foot, mid-range shots with plenty of time on the shot clock, and that is never going to be an optimal possession for the Hawks. Dort has to find a way to be more effective on both ends.

Quin Snyder lineup decisions: There are times when I think that Snyder catches too much flak from Hawks fans, but his rotation decisions at times are inexplicable. Coming into tonight's game, the four man group of Dort-Alexander-Walker-Wiggins-McCollum had a net rating of -19.6. Instead of finding a different grouping, Snyder played this group 11 minutes against Chicago, and it turned in a -29.3 net rating. Snyder had a tendency to leave in poor units for too long, and that was the case against Chicago.

Dyson Daniels not guarding Norm Powell down the stretch: Putting Dyson Daniels on Josh Giddey to start the game made plenty of sense, but when Norman Powell got heated up and started scoring at will on the Hawks, it took Snyder far too long to make the switch from having Alexander-Walker guard him to having Daniels guard him. Alexander-Walker not only had a bad night shooting the ball, but he could not stop Powell either.

Jock Landale struggling in space: Landale has had a tough year on defense, and one of the reasons the Bulls were able to find success on the offensive end of the court last night was because Landale was having trouble keeping pace. He was a -10 overall in the minutes he played, and the Hawks had a defensive rating of 130.0, compared to 94.8 when he was off the floor. If this continues, Snyder needs to look hard at giving rookie Zuby Ejiofor more minutes to try and pick things up on defense.

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