Everything is coming up Hawks right now. Suddenly the hottest team in the NBA and stunningly in contention for the No. 6 seed in the East, the Quin Snyder-coached team is finally becoming the team fans thought they would get before the season started.
It all starts on the defensive end. With Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker leading the defensive charge, the Hawks always had the skeleton of a good defensive team. But the reality was pretty disappointing. In the 56 games before the All-Star break, the Hawks had the No.17-ranked defense in the league. Every so often, they had a great defensive game, but there was nothing structural about that — those nights felt more random than anything.
In the nine games post-All Star, though, the Hawks have the No. 2-ranked defense in the league. Admittedly, nine games is a pretty small sample size compared to 56, but the great defensive nights that felt random before now feel expected.
Hawks have become one of the league's best defenses
There are multiple ways for a team to be elite defensively, and the Hawks are trending that direction. They're doing it by not letting teams get out in transition or score on second chances. Before the All-Star break, the Hawks were third-worst in the league in opponent fast break points. Since the break, they're eighth-best.
Before the break, they were middle of the pack in opposing second-chance points, and since then they've been second-best. Atlanta is a great defensive rebounding team, and preventing teams from getting second chances is, surprise, the best way to prevent them from scoring second-chance points.
Is this newfound defensive dominance a product of a small sample size? Maybe a little. But it's not like the Hawks' defensive success has come out of nowhere. They do have the talent to be a very good defensive team, it just didn't click for whatever reason until a few weeks ago. Even though these improvements are sudden, they're not shocking.
Even if they come back down to earth in the next month, this stretch has shown what Quin Snyder's squad is capable of when they're fully locked in on that end.
This is the identity fans wanted — and without the facilities for an elite offense, it's the identity that can take the Hawks the furthest. In this same stretch, the Hawks offense ranked No. 6 in basketball. That feels more like a flash in the pan than the defensive improvements. Or maybe the Hawks really are elite on both ends. That would be the preferred outcome for fans, I assume.