3 Takeaways: Atlanta Hawks ice-cold 2nd half offense leads to loss to Raptors

The Atlanta Hawks’ willingness to share the ball makes their offense soar

The Raptors are one of the best defensive teams in the league, but you wouldn’t know if it you watched the 1st quarter of Thursday’s Raptors-Hawks matchup. In the opening period, the Atlanta Hawks poured in 33 points, helped along by the fact that they racked up 9 assists on 13 field goals made, good for a massive 1st quarter assist percentage of 69.2 percent.

Head coach Lloyd Pierce has clearly preached to this young group that best teams in the league move the ball, and it shows. Of course, Mike Budenholzer and the previous regime ran the last Hawks team to lead the league in assist percentage for a full season (2014-15), which is also the last time a team that wasn’t the Golden State Warriors led the league in this specific stat.

This is important in the context of this game because against the Raptors, the Hawks showed that they understand that lots of passing leads to many, many great looks. This game—specifically the 1st quarter—was encouraging because the group was able to get to 25 assists despite stellar rookie playmaker Trae Young performing well below his season average in this category.

It is no coincidence that as the Hawks assist total per quarter and general ball movement decreased, so did their lead, to the point where the Raptors were able to comfortably wrest away control of this game.

But in the end, it was excellent to see nice assist totals in this game from Kevin Huerter (5), Taurean Prince (3), Omari Spellman (3) and Kent Bazemore (3). In total, nine different Atlanta Hawks got at least one assist on Thursday night.