Atlanta Hawks: 4 Takeaways From Loss to Jazz, including Lloyd Pierce being a great HC

On Friday night, the Atlanta Hawks fell to the Utah Jazz 128-112 for their second loss in a row.

In the Atlanta Hawks 128-112 loss to the Utah Jazz, some great things took place. Head coach Lloyd Pierce continued to make the franchise proud, praising Jazz center Rudy Gobert for his recent play. Pierce went on to say Gobert should definitely be an All-Star, a generally nice (and also true) thing to say amid the controversy of many players around the league mocking him for shedding tears when discussing the snub.

Gobert was a major difference maker in this matchup, finishing the game 7/7 from the field, for a 25-point, 13-rebound double double.

Trae Young continued his great play coming off of his Rookie of the Year award for January.

Young went off for 28 points and 9 assists, joining some great company with the performance.

Kevin Huerter continued to show why Red Peppers are so hot (because they can shoot from 3, duh), and the Hawks’ wings showed signs of life, with Taurean Prince showing that perhaps is ready for an increase in his workload.

Here are

Kevin Huerter and Trae Young were the Atlanta Splash Bros., and the outlook of the Luka Doncic trade continues to improve

Trae Young and Kevin Huerter combined to go 2/3 from the 3-point line, and 13 points in the first quarter. They didn’t slow down from there.

On a variety of 3-point shots that included catch-and-shoots, step-backs and deep bombs, from the second quarter on, Huerter and Young combined to shoot 7/14 from the 3-point line .

The starting backcourt duo finished with a combined 42 points, including 9/17 (52.9 percent) from the 3-point line.

The Red Pepper has shot the 3-point ball well all season and sits at 38 percent from deep entering Saturday’s game against Phoenix. However, we have documented how erratic Ice Trae’s 3-point shooting has been, but he is off to a great start so far. During his Rookie of the Month-winning January, Young shot 33.7 percent from the 3-point line—higher than his season average of 30.2 percent—but just as important, it was his highest 3-point attempts per game average (6.1 3PA) since the first month of the season.

https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/1091536425194086400

Might I interest you in another deep 3-pointer?

Or how about some clips of The Red Pepper showing his potential as a secondary playmaker in the starting lineup?

Huerter’s 1.77 assist-to-turnover ratio is third on the team, behind point guard Jeremy Lin and Young. Not too bad for the 19th pick in the 2018 NBA Draft.

And good ‘ol O’Boogie Spellman—who is already a solid 3-point shooter at 34.8 percent—flashed the other parts of his game, while knocking down one 3-pointer in a very un-Spellman like 1/6 shooting from deep. But he also had an instance where he scored after attacking a closeout with a straight-line drive to the rim. The more he works on attacking closeouts on offense, the more dangerous of a weapon he becomes for the Atlanta Hawks.

https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/1091538752047013888

He yet again showed an improved effort level on defense that features him moving well laterally and aggressively contesting shots when he can affect them.

Hawks’ head coach Lloyd Pierce has to re-evaluate the SF rotation (before Feb. 7)

This one isn’t as big of a concern as the other takeaways from this game, but could have a bigger long-term impact. Kent Bazemore played in his second game back from injury on Friday night, and the results were not great. He was more aggressive, but went 3/11 from the field. He had 6 rebounds….and 4 personal fouls in only 17 minutes, along with a technical foul.

Bazemore is still a target to be traded before the fast approaching February 7 NBA trade deadline, but lackluster performances don’t do much to help his trade value, though he is a known commodity.

That brings us to Taurean Prince and DeAndre’ Bembry. As per usual, Bembry provided a high-energy defensive effort. He was decently assertive on offense, getting up 7 shots though he only made 2 field goals on the night. But he did the little things, crashing the glass for 8 rebounds,  collecting two assists and a steal.

https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/1091529377504931840

The minute totals for the night finished out Bembry, Prince, then Bazemore, with the gap bewteen Bembry and Prince’s minutes being marginal. Prince’s name has come up in many trade rumors, as the 3-and-d wing is still young at 24 years old, but could help many playoff teams right now.

Prince finished with the best stat line of the wing group in Friday’s loss. He finished with 9 points, 2 rebounds, an assist, went 1/2 from 3-point range and was a -2 on the floor, highest among the wing trio.

It will be interesting to see how Pierce distributes the minutes against the Suns, who possess an intriguing, young wing rotation themselves.

Atlanta Hawks’ Lloyd Pierce continues to be a great head coach, and an even better person

This is sort of a bonus takeaway, because it is really just a few awesome things I noticed during the—always excellent—Atlanta Hawks broadcast.

1. Pierce continues to impress me with the way he gets the Hawks to play night-in, night-out, even though the players (obviously) don’t always execute to perfection. But against the Jazz in Utah on Friday night, the young Hawks actually won the turnover battle (11-15) and more impressive, they finished the game with 11 turnovers, well below their season average of 18. Pierce and the entire coaching staff deserves heaps of credit.
2. Look at how well the Hawks performed—this writer’s favorite play of the game—during this set where there is a double screen from Hueter and Dewayne Dedmon for Young, and then Dedmon performs a screen-the-screener action with Huerter that ultimately frees up Young for a drive.
3. Young’s ensuing drive frees up Dedmon for an open layup, and this was all helped by the fact that Omari Spellman is a solid 3-point shooter who keeps the help defender occupied.
4. The play was a beauty to watch, dare I say Warriors-esque in it’s speed and precision (besides Dedmon fumbling the ball). You can watch the clip below:

But on a more important off the court related note, Rudy Gobert got very emotional discussing his All-Star snub. Several players around the league took mocking Gobert on Twitter, which is unfair for a large number of reasons that I won’t take the time to list here.

So amid all this drama over Gobert’s—perfectly fine and refreshing—display off emotion, it was great to hear Lloyd Pierce take the time to give Gobert some love in his post-game comments.

The Hawk get right back at it Saturday against the Suns in Phoenix at 9 p.m. EST.