The Hawks are the best team in the league halfway through the season. Why are they so successful and how do you stop them?
by Austin Peters
Last season was a rollercoaster ride for the Hawks. They were sitting in the top three of the Eastern Conference before their best player, Al Horford, suffered a season ending injury. Injuries to Kyle Korver, Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap, and others plagued them the rest of the season and Atlanta limped into the eight seed in the playoffs, finishing 38-44. With everybody but Horford back and healthy, the Hawks pushed the number one seed Pacers to seven games before falling on the road in game seven.
As it stands today, Atlanta has the second best record in the league and the top spot in the Eastern Conference by a comfortable five game margin. Second year coach Mike Budenholzer, a Greg Poppovich disciple, has the Hawks looking nearly unbeatable in year two. They've been nicknamed "Spurs East" for a reason. Take this possession for example......
Looks eerily similar to this Spurs possession from last year's Western Conference Finals....
The statistics back this up as well. Atlanta has the best assist rate in the league and is top five in just about every team shooting statistic you can think of. A lot of these open looks come from the ball movement out of their ball screen actions. Most Atlanta possessions look like this one, where they set a lot of side ball screens and off ball screens to confuse the defense as to what they are trying to do.
In ball screens, the screener locks up the ball handler's defender (if they set the screen well). It is then up to the defender guarding the screener to decide on what to do and how to stop the ball handler. In addition to that, a third defender is needed to help on the big man setting the screen because he will be open as well. Every team has their own system on what to do in these situations but the Hawks are extremely dangerous because of how many guys they have capable of making threes. The more guys you have spotting up around the arc that need attention, the better your spacing is. The more spacing you have, the more room the ball handler has to work with on these screens, and the more space the shooters have to get good looks. This Korver three is the perfect example of the defense scrambling off a Teague/Millsap pick and roll, Korver's defender helping the roll man, and Millsap making a great pass to a wide open Korver.
Just under 63% of the Hawks possessions end with a shot taken by a person that has held the ball for less than two seconds, and they're shooting nearly 50% on those types of shots. Over half their shots come without the ball being dribbled, meaning that they come from a straight catch and shoot. In addition to that, the majority of their shots outside of 10 feet come with a defender not even within six feet of the shooter. All these stats are a testament to how well they move the ball and space the floor. (All stats via NBA.com)
How do you beat these guys? How do you stop this ball moving, ball screening juggernaut?
I watched their game against the Pistons the other day and may have found something that can slow down this high powered offense. Detroit held the Hawks to just 93 points with an offensive rating of 100.7, well below their 109.4 season rating. The Hawks shot just 30% from three in the game, with their season average being 38.8% from downtown.
The Hawks are the best spot up shooting team in the league, shooting 43.7% on catch and shoot attempts, with an effective field goal percentage of 57.4%. Off the dribble? Hawks rank 24th in the league on pull ups at 34.9%, with an eFG of 39.4%. They shoot just 43.2% on contested shots. It is clear that these guys thrive off of open threes and spot ups. Make them put it on the floor and force them to make a play off the dribble, they aren't nearly as good.
One of the ways Detroit brought this out was the way they guarded the Atlanta ball screens. I noticed early in the game that Andre Drummond was dropping pretty far back from the ball handler when his man was the screener. That sort of defense against a screen looks something like this....
On both Blake ball screens, you notice how Greg Monroe, Blake's defender, drops into the paint. Monroe had to step up a bit to respect Paul's shooting ability and also isn't athletic enough to rotate back to Blake in time. Drummond is more mobile than Monroe, making him a better candidate to drop back on ball screens instead of Monroe.
This type of defense gets killed because of Chris Paul's ability to knock down shots off the dribble and his passing ability. The problem with Atlanta, however, is that they are a bad team shooting off the dribble, as noted with all the stats above. When someone like Drummond is essentially able to guard two people by dropping back (defending his guy from the rim and leaving the ball handler open to shoot off the dribble), it allows the rest of the defense to suck up tight onto the rest of the Atlanta shooters spotting up around the arc.
Notice how Amir Johnson drops way down on the Teague/Millsap ball screen. Also, watch how the Raptors defenders suck up to their guys, take away Teague's passing lanes, and get a steal off a deflection. Teague is a guy that thrives off of getting to the rim and either finishing or kicking to open shooters. When Johnson drops back to defend that, not only is his path to the rim cut off but he doesn't have his shooters open to kick out too. He gets stuck either turning it over or taking a pull up, which we know the Hawks aren't good at.
Come playoff time, expect teams to do this against the Hawks a lot more. It's hard to scout teams and game plan during the regular season because of quick turnarounds between games. Defenses will become more conscious of stuff like this against the Hawks when they have ample time to prepare for them.
This doesn't mean that Atlanta isn't a contender. The East is really weak, with Chicago and Toronto melting down, Washington being new to the mix this season, and whatever the heck it is that's going on in Cleveland. Making the Finals is not out of the question with a team as deep and as well coached as the Hawks. They're red hot right now, and enjoying an impressive win streak at the moment. It is not out of the question that this team can get the number one seed in the East, and home court advantage that should help give them an edge over other teams.
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