The Atlanta Hawks need to find more ways to attack the basket

We haven’t seen the Atlanta Hawks (36-37) attack like they used to. Coming off of their loss to the Detroit Pistons, they host the Golden State Warriors on Friday. They will catch a break with Stephen Curry out with a foot injury and the return of Danilo Gallinari. But Draymond Green and Klay Thompson should play Friday while Bogdan Bogdanovic is listed as questionable.

It will still be some time before we see John Collins back on the floor as well following word that he received a PRP injection in his foot.

At any rate, the Hawks have to capitalize on Curry’s absence and get the win.

This will be a challenge even without Curry available to potentially drop 50 points on them as they have dropped three of their last five contests. But this is also one of just four home games left on the schedule.

Good things tend to happen when the Atlanta Hawks attack the basket

This season has already led us to break down what happens to the Hawks when they fall in love with the three-point shot. Since they rank third in the NBA in three-point efficiency, that isn’t necessarily the worst idea. Except that number is quite misleading with regards to the current state of this team.

Since returning from the All-Star break, the Hawks rank just 25th in the league in three-point efficiency, canning 34.3 percent of their looks from deep.

The only players to avoid the dip are De’Andre Hunter, Delon Wright, and Trae Young. Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kevin Huerter, and Lou Williams have all seen dips ranging from 2.1 percent (Huerter) to 6.5 percent (Bogdanovic).

Hunter and Delon Wright have improved their efficiency.

John Collins experienced the biggest swing before going down, dropping from 38.8 percent – good for second-best in the rotation – all the way down to 12.5 percent since Feb 24. It would be nice if we could blame his slump on his finger injury, but it predates the injury and even the All-Star break.

He shot just 22.2 percent in a 12-game stretch that was saved by four outings.

For the Hawks, getting to the basket should be the goal now. They are essentially average at it, ranking in the 18th percentile shooting 64.2 percent. But their volume is just as low, ranking in the 19th percentile in frequency.

The Hawks have attempted just 31.1 percent of their shots at the rim this season, down from 32.4 during the regular season last year. It is their lowest percentage of point-blank attempts since 2011 when they went to the Eastern Conference semifinals. The two previous years the Hawks had struggled in this department as well.

Interestingly, they only attempted 24.3 percent of their looks from up close.

However, this season they have attempted 24.5 percent of their shots at the rim in losses compared to 31.3 percent in wins, on average, per Cleaning The Glass which removes garbage time.

It has been especially bad since Collins, Young’s favorite lob target, as the Hawks have taken 33.5 percent of their looks at the rim on average since he’s been shut down. That is good. But they have only converted at a 57.8 percent clip which would be good for 25th in the NBA if extrapolated across an entire season.

Of note, Collins Hunter, and Young all rank near the top among the rotation in the frequency of shots at the rim behind Clint Capela.

Getting to the cup would not be a cure-all – they still have to hit the shots after all. But it would be a good way to keep the offense rolling when the long ball isn’t falling. At worst they would get to the line more just as Bogdanovic did to snap out of his recent slump.