The Atlanta Hawks (35-36) have a trio of foreign-born players that they have leaned heavily on this season. They have gone just 6-5 in the month of March following their 117-112 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday. And if they are going to have any chance at winning their play-in matchup and beyond, they need this European connection to keep it up.
Bogdan Bogdanovic, Clint Capela, and Danilo Gallinari were all brought in for this very reason last year, so this is no surprise.
However, with the way this season has gone – all three have missed games for various reasons – their consistency in recent weeks has been refreshing. Especially, because so many of the Hawks issues were out of their control.
Despite falling short on Sunday, the trio delivered the goods once again.
The Atlanta Hawks have benefitted greatly from their European connection this season
Basketball’s international expansion has benefitted every team in the NBA and the Hawks are enjoying this current infusion as much as anyone. They have the reigning rebounding champion in Capela, a legit Sixth Man of the Year candidate (if he held the role all season) in Bogdanovic, as well as a bonafide walking bucket in Gallinari.
We talked about how their efforts against the Memphis Grizzlies were wasted.
Gallinari chipped in 16 of his 27 points in the second quarter while Bogdanovic got 11 of his 21 in the fourth and Capela logged his 29th double-double of the season.
With John Collins out of the lineup as well as some extremely uncharacteristic turnovers and poor rebounding it isn’t hard to figure out why they lost and it wasn’t the three vets who combined for 62 points on 19 rebounds, and six assists.
Bogdanovic had broken out of a slump that has plagued him for six games in the win over Memphis. But he struggled against the Pelicans, going 2-for-9 from downtown. He still managed 11 fourth-quarter points going 4-for-8 from the floor and 0-for-3 from deep but getting to the line for three key free throws,
He’s been a fourth-quarter scoring maven for the Hawks since being moved to a bench role ranking 20th in the NBA with 5.9 fourth-quarter points per game.
That’s tied with Luka Doncic and is better than James Harden and Trae Young.
Capela has had injuries impact his performance as much if not more than anyone on this roster. He came into the season recovering from an offseason procedure to treat his Achilles and has missed time with an ankle injury as well.
The dropoff in his play from last season was so start he had us wondering where the double-double machine had gone.
Since a five-point “clunker” against the Boston Celtics where he still managed to snag 11 boards, a span of 10 games, he’s averaged 12.5 points, 10.9 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks with 1.2 assists for good measure.
His 68.2 field goal percentage is fourth among players to appear in all 10 games in that window.
Gallinari has been on for over a month now averaging 13.1 points on 43.5 percent shooting overall and 37.1 percent from outside. He’s only failed to post double-digit points twice since Feb 15; a span of 13 games with 10 starts in Collins’ place. Along the way, we’ve seen several impressive dunks and even got this smooth stepback from the 33-year-old, 14-year vet.
All three are experiencing down seasons statistically compare to last year. But the Hawks have a plus-1.5 net rating when any one of the three is on the floor this season, per Cleaning The Glass.
Their net rating drops to minus-8.3 when all three are off of the floor.
This has certainly been a trying season. And who knows how it will end or what will happen after it does. But the Hawks European connection is doing its part to give them a fighting chance down the stretch.