The Atlanta Hawks struggled during their six-game losing streak. Coach Nate McMillan played Lou Williams in an effort to get the second unit producing in the same manner as they were last season. As a result, Delon Wright was out of the rotation.
Then McMillan has changed things up with the back court rotation with the second unit. Firstly he is letting Trae Young go hard at the start of games, as he is substituting Wright with only seven minutes gone. Wright plays for a few minutes and then Young comes back on to finish the quarter strong.
However, McMillan has started playing Wright and WIlliams together, mainly due to a lack of choice with the fresh injury issues suffered by De’Andre Hunter and the shooting struggles of Cam Reddish. The good new for the Hawks is that the pairing seems to work.
The Atlanta Hawks bench needs their potent backcourt to work
The Hawks offense is so strong when Young is on the court. However, there have been issues when Young has to sit with the Hawks not scoring. Well, with Wright and Williams on the court together this in not a problem.
Williams takes the bulk of the scoring load, he has done that for a lot of years in the league. He can take on the ball-handling duties if he required to. That is where having Wright on the court at the same time takes some of the pressure off Williams so that he can put all of his energy into creating offense.
Wright, on top of helping bring the ball up the court, is also a tremendous defender. He is not as good as Kris Dunn but what he lacks at the defensive end compared to Dunn, he more than makes up for at the other end. This is why he is going to see the court so much more than the ex-Hawks guard.
This also means that the backcourt is not a sieve like it was when Williams played with Young last season. Wright is a solid defender and with the offense humming, they can afford to carry a struggling player who can defend like Reddish over the past two games. This is crucial to the success of the team and is a good outome for the Hawks.