Atlanta Hawks: 3 Takeaways to Competitive Loss to Celtics
By Dallin Duffy
Where’s the Bench?
Bench scoring has been an issue all season long for the Hawks, especially since the departure of Jeremy Lin to the Raptors.
Not only were the bench squad not scoring well on Saturday, most seemed tentative to shoot. Lloyd Pierce ran a 10-man rotation (tame for him) and since no starter played more than 33 minutes, all the bench guys had a fair share of court time.
Jaylen Adams continues to be hesitant with the ball in his hands, attempting (and making) just one shot, and only added 2 assists to go along with that in his 14 minutes of play.
DeAndre’ Bembry had 19 minutes with 4 shots and Kent Bazemore took just 6 in 21 minutes. For a team that has one big strength in pace, this bench squad just isn’t cutting it, and were once again carried by a 42-year-old Vince Carter.
The secondary 5-man unit needs to be more dominant and get more comfortable shooting. Granted they were outmatched on paper against Boston’s insane depth, but they have held their own versus other good teams like Toronto and Minnesota before.
With the starting core of Young, Collins, Prince and Huerter looking more and more like the real deal, bench additions will be key moving forward for this team.