ATLANTA -- Five years ago, the Hawks were coming off a surprising Eastern Conference Finals appearance with hopes of becoming a young team on the rise. Instead, over the next four seasons, Atlanta's Play-In Tournament appearances were more reliable than a Draymond Green in-season suspension.
Throughout that entire four-year stretch, Atlanta was never more than 10 games above or below .500. They finished their seasons with 43, 41, 36, and 40 wins.
That era of mediocre basketball should come to a screeching halt this year. Players and staff deftly dodged questions about win totals or postseason goals during their first public statements of the new season. Coach Quin Snyder made sure to point out that the Hawks are the third-youngest team in the league early in his remarks. But he also gave a clear message during Media Day.
"We can be patient, and still be urgent."
The Hawks aren't trying to rush things. That might happen organically anyway. It took the Pacers only two years to go from 35 wins to one win away from their first championship. The NBA is a copycat league, and every team is going to ask themselves if they can learn from that blueprint. The Hawks are one of the few that are positioned to actually do it.
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How the Hawks become the next Pacers
Let the Hawks offense fly
The hallmark of the Pacers offense is that they run, and they run a lot. Surprisingly though, they weren't the leaders in hit-ahead passes last season. That honor belonged to none other than the Hawks, who had the highest transition frequency in the league last season and finished No. 3 in pace.
The Hawks weren't good enough at converting those transition opportunities, nor were they dangerous enough in their halfcourt offense. That combination led to a mediocre efficiency, which was the buzzword for Snyder on media day.
"They’re not posting offensive efficiency in the box score," Snyder said. "You don’t pull that up online. You pull up someone’s bottom-line numbers. So that’s on you guys [media] to capture that part of the game."
The Pacers were able to maintain great efficiency due to the unpredictable nature of their offense. Carlisle rarely called set plays, instead trusting in his players to make their own reads.
"The more the game can be random and unselfish, and simply finding the right shot at the right time, it makes it infinitely harder to guard," Carlisle told Basketball She Wrote's Caitlin Cooper over the offseason.
Snyder echoed similar thoughts about what he'd like to do with his new-and-improved offense.
"We’ve been continuing to work on playing random basketball, for lack of a better word, read-based basketball," Snyder said. "I think that’s what we do. Our roster is beginning to formulate in a way where I think we’re more capable of doing that."
Jalen Johnson is a key to that rise. The playmaking forward's return from injury will be vital to jump-starting an offense that should be much more potent.
The new additions are even more vital. Kristaps Porzingis gives Young a pick-and-pop target too that he's never had before. He was also one of the most efficient post players in the league, attacking mismatches relentlessly. Alexander-Walker is a good shooter, and Kennard is a great one, giving Young much more space to work with from last season.
| Player | 3-PT att. per game | 3-PT% |
|---|---|---|
| Kristaps Porzingis | 6.0 | 41.2% |
| Nickeil Alexander-Walker | 4.5 | 38.1% |
| Luke Kennard | 4.0 | 43.3% |
Young has never truly gotten the credit he deserves as an elite passer. He led the league in assists last season with 11.6 per game and has raised that average every year of his career. He's been the centerpiece of Hawks offenses that have been as good as No. 2 in the league. This is among the best talent that he's had around him, and the Hawks have a good chance to be a top 10 offense.
The Hawks can steal the Pacers' defensive blueprint
The Pacers were a fun team in Haliburton's first season. They didn't become a dangerous one until they improved their defense.
The Hawks, who have been a bottom-10 defense for most of the Trae Young era, are already closer to Indiana's No. 14 defense from last season than outsiders might realize. Atlanta rose to 18th last season, aided by the brilliant play of Dyson Daniels.
That ranking should continue to climb. Much attention has been given to Porzingis, a behemoth 7-foot-2 rim protector whose defensive value is obvious. Alexander-Walker might be just as important.
The Pacers were able to make their leap defensively largely through ramping up their backcourt pressure, as Carlisle said on the Zach Lowe podcast.
"The separator for us is what our guys are willing to do that a lot of other teams weren’t willing to do. And that was to play full-court, physical defense and commit to a style and attitude of how we were going to play."
The numbers back up Carlisle's statement. Via Synergy, the Pacers pressed on 12.7 percent of their possessions, leading the league by a mile. The Hawks were ranked 25th, pressing on just 1.3 percent of their possessions. And while the Pacers had 11 of the top 17 players in the league in time spent pressing, Dyson Daniels was the only Hawk in the top 200.
Expending the energy to guard the entire floor is a tough ask. The Hawks now have two guys in Daniels and Alexander-Walker who are capable of doing it.
"In Nickeil, we can switch things, pick up full court, and make life difficult," Daniels said.
The other major adjustment that the Pacers made was to get better at protecting Haliburton, who has been relentlessly targeted as a defender in one-on-one matchups. The Hawks know that the same is coming for Young.
"People attack him [defensively] because they know it has an impact on him offensively," Snyder said. "They try to fatigue him. When you have a player that is as good on the ball as Dyson has been, they try to put Trae on the ball. It's basic logic."
Haliburton has grown as a defender, and Carlisle has also helped him by incorporating a variety of different coverages for him to use. It's rare to see a point guard employing drop coverage typically reserved for centers. The Pacers sprinkled that in during their Finals run, among other techniques.
Snyder is as innovative and creative a coach as there is in the league. And Young has competed harder on defense in recent years, which is the most important component to an improved defense.
Young is, of course, still the centerpiece of this team for now and the team will go only as far as he takes them. He's eligible for an extension, which is a storyline that will linger throughout the year. For now though, he's focused on the bright present.
"I got a great team going into the season. One that you can’t really say I’ve had," Young said. "So I’m even more excited about that.
"Who knows what the future is for me. But right now I’m here and I’m present, like me and coach have been talking about. I’m excited and I’m ready to go.”