The Atlanta Hawks need revenge against the Wizards to kick start season
The Atlanta Hawks have had a start to the season which is less than ideal. They are sitting at 3-3 with two home wins, one away win, and three away losses. One of these losses was against the Washington Wizards, who they play at State Farm Arena in the next game.
This game is going to be crucial to get the Hawks going again. They have struggled to get out of the blocks in every road game, only managing to come back in the game against the New Orleans Pelicans, which they only won by three points.
The last Wizards game was at Capital One Arena and to compound matter for the Hawks, it was the second night of a back-to-back. This was also the case for the Wizards but they were able to respond to the challenge a whole lot better than the Hawks.
The Atlanta Hawks need to do this differently this time around.
The Hawks’ defense had a really off night in the last game against the Wizards. They allowed the Wizards to shoot 13-of-34 from deep which is good for 38.2 percent. The Hawks were really bad from behind the arc themselves, shooting 6-of-21 which was only good for 28.6 percent. Getting these percentages closer to each other will be crucial to reversing the result.
The Hawks also lost the rebounding battle 43-51 which is unusual given that they had the league’s best rebounder from last season, Clint Capela. He is on a minutes restriction which explains part of the reason that Montrezl Harrell was able to get six of the Wizards 14 offensive rebounds last game. The Hawks only got six offensive rebounds as a team.
On top of that, the Wizards had only six turnovers for the game which is not how the Hawks usually defend. They in turn had 13 turnovers, most of which were preventable when the team develops greater chemistry as the season progresses.
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Given that the Hawks are struggling on the road, this is one of only two home games in the next seven that they play. The other home game is against the Utah Jazz, so this Wizards game is going to be crucial to where they sit in the standings at the end of their Western Conference road swing.