When the Atlanta Hawks (17-21) take on the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, they will be the healthier team for the first time in over a month. Since they lost Trae Young for two games to health and safety protocols (since returned), they’ve gone 3-6. The returns of Bogdan Bogdanovic and John Collins weren’t enough to stop a 134-118 loss to the Lakers.
With a month until the deadline, and amid the frustrations of the team’s general manager, we’ve been looking at different trade scenarios.
The Hawks can only take it one game at a time which means focusing on the Clippers.
Transition defense could be an issue for the Atlanta Hawks yet again versus the Clippers
Atlanta has the worst transition defense in the NBA ranking 24th in points allowed per game at 19.9 and dead last in opponent’s efficiency, allowing the other team to shoot 58.9 percent from the floor. The next worst team is the Sacramento Kings at 55.4 percent overall. Opponents are generating 1.24 PPP against them.
The gap between their league-worst opponent’s score frequency and the second-worst of the Utah Jazz is larger than that between Utah and the seventh-worst of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
All of that despite being in transition defense just 14.8 percent of the time; tied for 21st in the league with the Memphis Grizzlies, New York Knicks, and Toronto Raptors.
This despite being seventh in points per game and eighth in made field goals entering Sunday.
The Clippers are averaging 19.5 points per game in transition. That’s good for ninth in the NBA and marks the ninth opponent ranked in the top-10 in transition scoring that Atlanta has faced this season.
Joe Prunty wants the defense to be more consistent. pic.twitter.com/bclakZMJjk
— Bally Sports: Hawks (@HawksOnBally) January 8, 2022
This has included multiple games against the Chicago Bulls and Charlotte Hornets. They are 1-3 in those games and are 0-for-4 recently against the rest of the top-10 with all four coming in December including that loss to the Lakers who rank second behind the Charlotte Hornets in transition points per game.
The Hawks look to get out in transition about as much as they see it, ranking 25th in frequency.
They’re fairly average when they do run transition offense, tying for 12th with the Dallas Mavericks in effective field goal percentage.
What they can do is keep the Clippers in the pick-and-roll, which shouldn’t be an issue for the Hawks and Trae Young having both Collins and Clint Capela back. But it’s not because of them directly. It is because the Clippers are 24th allowing 0.89 PPP to pick-and-roll ball handlers while Young generates 0.96 PPP in that role on league-high frequency.
Of course, Young has been scoring like crazy, even dropping a career-high 56 points, and the Hawks are still losing. They need to tighten up on defense which may need to start in transition against the Clips.