Atlanta Hawks: 5 reasons behind the big Game 6 letdown

4. Thrown Freely

The Hawks finished the regular season ranked fifth in the NBA, knocking down 81.2 percent of their free throws. If you’ve been paying attention you probably know where this is going. In the entire playoffs, they’re at 80.8 percent. Even in this round, they’re hitting 79.2 percent of their free throws.

The bottom fell out in Game 6 as Atlanta went 13-for-24 from the charity stripe or 54.2 percent.

Trae Young only hit 3-of-5 free throws after going 17-of-19 in Game 5. He was also the victim of a role reversal as the 76ers looked to send him to the line

To make matters worse, the Sixers only hit 69.6 percent of their free throws. This has multiple implications given Ben Simmons’ usual struggles at the free-throw line.

It was big news when Simmons went 4-14 from the free-throw line in Game 5 as the Hawks began sending him there intentionally during their rally back. Say what you may, it was an effective use of the strategy by Head Coach Nate McMillan.

Hacking Simmons wasn’t a big part of Game 6 as he ran into early foul trouble with three first-half fouls and wound up playing less than nine minutes in the entire first half.

The Hawks did try to use it in the fourth quarter but Simmons went 2-for-4 at the line, providing no real advantage to fouling him with the 76ers playing with the decent enough lead.

Atlanta missed their own free throws which kept them from taking advantage of Philly’s poor shooting at the line and weren’t even able to use their ace-in-the-hole strategy to try and repeat their theatrics of the last two games.

Clint Capela was also the victim of a role reversal as the 76ers looked to send him to the line, but more on him in a moment.