DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!

But first, three paragraphs largely about offense. I am not a complete crack-pot.

For the first 18 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a ridiculous eFG% of 20.5%. For the next 18 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a ridiculous eFG% of 84.2%. For the entirety of the meaningful 36 minutes of the game, the Hawks had a reasonable eFG% of 54.2%. 

There are reasons beyond cold probability that the Hawks shot significantly better for one stretch of the game than another. The Celtics came out playing very good defense from the jump. Amir Johnson and Jonas Jerebko took Marcus Smart's lead, getting physical leverage against Paul Millsap and Al Horford in the post. Smart and Isaiah Thomas defended Kyle Korver as well as they have so far in the series. That the Hawks were not getting the typical looks that allowed them to shoot 51.6% over 82 games contributed to them shooting 20.5% for a quarter-and-a-half last night.

Similarly, it is not entirely coincidental that the Hawks started making shots with unsustainable frequency at roughly the same moment they started turning stops into transition opportunities. A below average offense looked significantly better when it didn't have to face a set defense as often. Analysis! Observation.

The most frustrating thing about watching the Hawks spend much of the last four playoff series missing a higher percentage of shots than they have over the last two regular seasons is, natch, watching the Hawks miss shots. The second most frustrating thing is the tendency to formulate a supernatural explanation for the misses.

It's not impossible that the Hawks have struggled to convert the chances they're pleased to have created in the playoffs due to a collective character or psychological defect, but I contend the defensive performance they put on, possession-by-possession while shooting 20.5%, at home, in front of an increasingly anxious and frustrated audience demonstrates tremendous discipline and commitment. Which conforms with my prejudice to dismiss the character/psychological explanation for missed shots. Funny how that works.

Variance is not confined to shot-making. Though they've been excellent overall, the Hawks have not been perfect defensively for all five games in this series. They looked shockingly unprepared in the first quarter of Game 3. The transition defense* fell apart in the second half of the third quarter of Game 4. Still, the Hawks are holding the Celtics to 95 points per 100 possessions in this series, by bettering their second-best defense in the regular season numbers in three of the four factors.

*The chief culprit in Game 4, Mike Scott, was excellent for the second time this series, in Game 5.

The Hawks entered the playoffs with a 2-3% chance of winning the title, a 7-8% chance of winning the East, because they allowed 5 fewer points per 100 possessions than the league this season. The Hawks entered the playoffs with a 2-3% chance of winning the title, a 7-8% chance of winning the East, because they scored 1.3 points fewer than the league per 100 possessions this season. Offensive struggles, especially comical offensive struggles, tend toward the obvious. That's but half the story.

Hickory-High: Atlanta Hawks: Go Small. Go Far.

At Hickory-High, Matt Cianfrone looks at 5-man units and wonders if playing Marvin Williams at the four alongside Jeff Teague, Kirk Hinrich, Joe Johnson, and Josh Smith might help with that pesky problem the Hawks have scoring against teams with winning records, a problem they will be forced to overcome in the playoffs:

The inability to score has been particularly striking against the teams in the playoffs at the moment: New York, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Indiana, Miami, the Los Angeles Clippers and Lakers, Boston, Chicago, Memphis, San Antonio and Philadelphia. In the 19 games the Hawks have played against those opponents since Horford’s injury the they have scored over ninety points 4 times; twice against Indiana, once against the Thunder, and once against the Knicks. In only two games did the Hawks score 100 points or more, one of two matchups with the Pacers, and one of two with the Knicks . Meanwhile in seven of those games the Hawks have scored less than 80 points, and in one game against the Magic, the Hawks needed overtime to score 89 points.

Cianfrone uses this as a jumping off point to examine how the offense functions:

Plenty of this offensive problem is centered on how the Hawks offense is built. Atlanta runs isolation plays on 12.0% of their possessions according to mySynergySports.com, a number that is comparable to other isolation heavy teams such as the Thunder (13.7%) and Lakers (12.8%). Unfortunately for the Hawks they do not have a Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook, or Kevin Durant on their roster. What they do have is Joe Johnson; who is pretty good in isolation situations scoring 0.85 points per possession, only 0.02 points less than Bryant. The biggest problem for the Hawks is where the ball goes when a Johnson isolation does not work. So far this year that answer has been to Josh Smith. This season Smith has 161 isolation possessions more than anyone on the Hawks outside of Johnson’s 212. In fact the two, combined, account for about 53% of the Hawks 703 team isolation possessions. Smith though does not use his portion to produce anything near that of Johnson, scoring 0.75 points per possession in these situations, shooting only 35.3% from the field, and turning the ball over 6.2% of the time. In total, Smith only scores on 39.1 percent of his isolation attempts. There has to be a better option for a struggling offense.

There are four good paragraphs (too good to pick just one to excerpt) about the pick-and-roll offense and a consideration of the defensive consequences of a small lineup. There is no consideration of Marvin Williams' playoff history which, admittedly, might render the whole value of getting him more minutes at the expense of the rest of the bench moot.

AJC.com: Cunningham: Joe Johnson’s D has been strong, too

Michael Cunningham crunches the numbers on Joe Johnson's defense so far this season:

According to Synergy, Johnson has allowed just .71 points per possession, ranked No. 42 among all players. (Synergy had him allowing .93 points per possession in 2010-11 and .89 in 2009-10). This season Joe has been very good when defending in isolation (.56 ppp allowed, ranked 13th), against screen-roll ball-handlers (.69 ppp, ranked 33rd) and chasing his man off screens (.69 ppp, ranked seventh). Joe’s only defensive weakness this season, according to Synergy, has been defending spot-ups: .94 ppp, ranked 113th.

Opponent PER tells the same story. According to 82games.com, Johnson’s foes at shooting guard have posted a paltry 8.6 PER and small forwards have managed just a 12.6 PER. (The opponent PER is ugly when Joe has been at point guard but that has only been a couple minutes, according to 82games.) Last season Joe’s opponent PER was 11.6 at shooting guard and 12.9 at small forward; in 2009-10, those numbers were 15.3 and 14.4, respectively.

Joe’s on-court, off-court numbers at basketballvalue.com also are positive. The Hawks have allowed 6.24 fewer points per 100 possessions with Joe on the court. And it doesn’t appear as if his strong numbers here depend on having Al and Josh Smith behind him: Joe has been part of strong defensive units that featured Zaza Pachulia or Jason Collins at center and even one lineup with Vladimir Radmanovic at power forward.

A healthy elbow has returned normal Joe Johnson service to the offensive end. Reasonable defensive assignments for Johnson, after years of being asked to chase around far quicker players, have also helped the Hawks survive the absence of Al Horford, thus far. Obviously, Johnson deserves his share of credit for his generally effective defensive play but this provides us another moment to be thankful for Jeff Teague receiving regular playing time.

NBA Playbook: The Art of the Thief

Brett Koremenos on Jeff Teague's five first half steals in Philadelphia:

Any good thief has either quick hands or great instincts. The special ones, like Jason Kidd, have a combination of both. Against Philadelphia, Teague showed he may be in that elite category.

Quotes of the Day -- January 6, 2012

If you had six games into the season in your "When will the Hawks give a performance accompanied by post-game rhetoric that makes you consider giving up all otherwise reasonable hope for the team?" pool, I think you won.

Al Horford on Chris Bosh's three-pointer that sent the game to overtime:

"That’s a miscommunication there. That went on all game. Guys were not on the same page and we weren’t switching. We were having some problems with the coverages. Jeff, you can’t fault him, he expects it to be done the right way every time."

Jeff Teague's inexperience is apparently manifesting itself through expectations that his teammates will fulfill their assignments.

Josh Smith provides a different perspective:

"I don’t know how much louder I can scream for whoever it is that a man is coming up and setting a screen. . . . We were giving up too many straight-line drives to the basket and dribble-drive layups. It’s disappointing to see that when somebody makes a play, as teammates we have to come up and help them."

I don't know how much louder I can scream when someone is taking a shot that has about a 30% chance of going in. We were giving up too many possessions on low-percentage shots. It's disappointing to see that when somebody settles for a bad shot, his teammates have to come up and fight for the offensive rebound and help him.

Basketball Prospectus: Doolittle: Riffing on the Hawks' Defense

In his ongoing attempt to figure out the Hawks (good luck, fellow traveler on that road), Bradford Doolittle examines their early season defensive success from the United Center:

It's hard to judge the Hawks' defense based on the fourth quarter. The Bulls scored 34 points in the period after, again, putting up just 42 in the first three periods. Rose and Deng combined for 30 of those points, playing alongside Kyle Korver, Taj Gibson and Omer Asik. It's not like Drew wasn't trying to force the ball out of Rose's hands, the Hawks just weren't able to do it. When they got overaggressive with trying to trap, Rose found the open guy, usually Deng. It's not like they weren't helping once Rose flashed into the lane. On a drive that tied the game with 9.9 seconds left, Rose lost Teague with a crossover and drove the right side of the lane. Josh Smith moved over to contest the shot and was in position with both hands raised. Smith of course is one of the league's most athletic players, a premier shot blocker who is six inches taller than Rose. However, the MVP simply went up and over Smith as if he wasn't there. There is no scheme, design or quantitative analysis than can explain it.

...

Despite the poor finish, the Hawks ended up holding the Bulls to .85 points per possession in the game, though the wild swings of the early season dropped them to third in Defensive Rating. There was nothing schematically that I saw to explain Atlanta's defensive success. We've seen in the past that Atlanta is capable of putting the screws to teams defensively as they did during last year's playoffs and perhaps Drew's insistence on that approach has simply gotten through. With no major personnel additions to explain the defensive improvement, it's the only explanation we really have. And it's not a good one. The Hawks have finished 14th and 15th on defense the last two years, respectively, and it's going to take more than six games to prove they have made any sort of leap.

The Hawks' defense is something to keep an eye on. That third spot behind the Heat and Bulls in the East seems to be up for grabs and a more committed Atlanta squad is certainly capable of grabbing it. I don't like their chances to do so based both on the track record of the team's core and the age of its bench. But as I am always compelled to say when writing about the Hawks, we've been wrong about them before.

Pro Basketball Prospectus 2011-12 is on sale.

HoopSpeak: Mason: Chicago goes to the half court trap to trip up the Hawks

Friend of the blog, Beckley Mason, on the turning point of the game:

Judging by the Atlanta Hawks' defensive energy and focus, you wouldn’t have guessed they were on the second game in a brutal back to back that began with the Heat. But with 7 minutes left in the third, Atlanta was in absolute control of the Chicago Bulls. The offense wasn’t exactly humming, but certainly grinding. Snappy ball-movement and running Joe Johnson in swooping circles around a series of screeners was giving the Bulls fits. When the Bulls’ aggressive big men hedged to Johnson, Josh Smith and Al Horford quickly slipped back door for alley-oops.

When a team is getting pounded, sage commentators intone that the team “needs to change something.” Really, sometimes a team only needs to make open shots, or take better care of the ball. Certainly either would have helped the Bulls, but it wasn’t just execution–the Hawks were taking it to them. They were beating them to loose balls, disrupting the Bulls already choppy offense and abusing the Bulls defensive philosophy with clever reads.

The Bulls won 61 games last season, and will win a whole bunch this year because night in and night out, they simply play harder and more aggressively than their competition.

So in an apparent effort to reclaim that identity, coach Tom Thibodeau unleashed a half court trap in the second half that dramatically shifted the flow of the game. With all those long and fast players, the Bulls second unit–which often includes Luol Deng– is a near perfect group for trapping.

But the Bulls debuted the trap with Carlos Boozer, of all people, on top. That’s because the goal wasn’t to get deflections and steals, but to divert the Hawks theretofore flowing offense into channels unaccustomed to handle the volume of offensive responsibility, and to burn precious seconds off the clock before the Hawks could initiate their offense.

Click through for video and further analysis.

Quote of the Day -- January 3, 2012

Al Horford on the dichotomy of a great team defensive performance (76 points allowed on 93 possessions) for the game as a whole and giving up 34 points on 23 possessions in the fourth quarter:

"We dominated them for most of the game. Just Derrick Rose happened."

Luol Deng and missed free throws played key roles, as well. The gameflow isn't pretty.

Heat Index: Windhorst: Heat suffer first loss on Hawks' changeup

Brian Windhorst:

[M]ostly the Hawks beat the Heat with their scouting report. That left the Heat with more than just a loss but with a headache. Like a hitter who can’t lay off the curve in the dirt, the Heat know they’re probably about to face a steady diet of what finally beat them for the first time in six games.

The season is now a little more than a week old and the book on the Heat has started to get around. The advance scouts have filed their reports. The assistant coaches have a catalog of games to watch to make suggestions. Head coaches have a huge bullet point for their game plan.

Right now, the Heat have a problem with zone defense and the whole league is about to realize it.

First, Jason Collins. Now, an opponent-specific* zone. Like his predecessor, Larry Drew's strengths may be on the opposite end of the floor as was advertised.

*As opposed to last season's use of zone defense as a way to play Mike Bibby, Jamal Crawford, and Joe Johnson all at the same time.

How the Hawks Are 3-1, Is the Start Sustainable?

A few items to watch as the Hawks prepare to play the two best teams in the East, the Heat and the Bulls, a combined four times this week:

1) Offensive rebounding -- The Hawks were next-to-last in the league in offensive rebounding last season which only exaggerated the team's reliance on long, two-point jump shots to score points. Through four games this season, the Hawks have rebounded more than 30% of their misses, with Marvin Williams (11%), Zaza Pachulia (19.8%), Al Horford (9.4%), and Willie Green (9.2%) leading the way.

Can this be sustained? Sure, if Williams and Pachulia continue to play this well, they deserve more playing time and, historically, both have been above average rebounders. If Josh Smith stops hanging around the perimeter on offense, he could get more involved on the offensive glass, too.

2) Limiting turnovers -- Not turning the ball over and offensive rebounding were the twin pillars of Mike Woodson's offense that destroyed inferior opposition during the 2009-10 season. It's still an effective combination in 2011-12.

Can this be sustained? I think so. It's not like every single Hawk has taken good care of the ball. Pachulia, Pargo, and Radmanovic all have turnover rates above 20% so there's a cushion for when the starters begin to turn the ball over at a rate closer to their career averages.

3) Forcing turnovers -- The Hawks were next-to-last in forcing turnovers last season. Through four games, they're 8th in the league. The Hawks are still in the bottom five of the league in possessions per game but that has more to do with what they're doing well offensively than an inability to get the ball back.

Can this be sustained? I'm skeptical. Jeff Teague's athleticism adds something to the team's perimeter defense but I don't think the second unit will be nearly as successful trapping better opposition.

4) Interior defense -- Opponents have made 48.1% of their shots at the rim. That's the best at the rim defense in the league, 14.6 percentage points better than the league average.

Can this be sustained? No. The Heat led the league in opponents field goal percentage on shots at the rim last season. They allowed 58% of those shots to be made. With Smith and Horford, interior defense can continue to be a strength but not to that degree.

5) Three-point shooting -- Last season, the Hawks were slightly below the league average in three-point attempts per game* and three-point field goal percentage. Through four games, the Hawks are comfortably above the league average in both categories.

Can this be sustained? Probably not. Joe Johnson and Vladimir Radmanovic are both making at least 40% of their three-point attempts. Jeff Teague and Marvin Williams are both making at least 50% of their three-point attempts. That won't continue. On the other hand, the Hawks probably will continue to take 20 long, two-point jump shots every game but will begin to make more than 27% of those shots so, again, there's a cushion as players drift toward their career averages.

*Partially due to the low number of possessions per game, but since the Hawks are still in the bottom five of the league in possessions per game so far this season, I think it's a fair year-to-year comparison.

Quote of the Day -- January 1, 2012

Larry Drew:

"We reverted back to short closeouts and not getting out there with a sense of urgency. With our theory as far as closeouts you have got to make them put the ball on the floor. We did not do that."

Ironically, short closeouts may be the best way to defend the Heat on Monday night.

ProBasketballTalk: Mahoney: Hawks show uncharacteristic sensibility with signing of Tracy McGrady

The NBA needn't be officially open for business for me to take an unpopular and possibly incorrect position. Bronn made a case for Tracy McGrady in the comments of that post and Rob Mahoney compliments the Hawks for signing McGrady at Pro Basketball Talk today:

McGrady may not have the ability to dribble-penetrating ability that Atlanta so desperately needs, but he’s an incredibly cost-efficient addition capable of hedging against the seemingly inevitable loss of Jamal Crawford. The Hawks aren’t in a position where re-signing Crawford makes financial sense; they already have $66 million in salary committed for this season and $62 million committed next year, meaning that Crawford’s deal would likely push a solid — but firmly non-contending — team over the luxury tax line. Even beyond the practical consideration of overpaying a dwindling, inefficient scorer like Crawford, the financial realities for a tax-averse team like Atlanta make a re-signing a virtual impossibility.

Such is the reality for a franchise that presented Joe Johnson with a golden effigy on the first day of free agency last season, invested in Marvin Williams to the tune of $8 million a year, and took every shortcut there is to take in team construction.

All of which makes McGrady — who will join the Hawks on a one-year, minimum salary deal — an oddly reasonable signing.

...

For the league minimum, this is very likely the best the Hawks could possibly do. McGrady isn’t what he once was (and certainly isn’t Crawford), but this is a smart, economical move for a team with such a cluttered cap sheet.

John Hollinger's player profile of McGrady (Insider) provides further reason for measured optimism:

McGrady was an intriguing player to watch last season because of the huge variance in his play from night to night. There were games when his legs were back and it looked like the old days -- soaring over defenders for jumpers, driving and finding open men, or dunking at the rim. Other nights you wanted to run out on the court and give him a Segway to get around.

If Larry Drew can spot McGrady with anything approaching the alacrity with which he used Jason Collins for much of last season, the Hawks may have another interesting low-minute impact player. Maybe McGrady's comeback season in Detroit suffered from too much playing time and, if he doesn't have 1600 good minutes in him, he has 800.

Then there's the chance that signing McGrady signals something of a philosophical shift for the Hawks. Collins, reportedly, will return on a third consecutive one-year deal. Earl Watson, his value heavy on the defensive end as well, may serve as the injured Kirk Hinrich's understudy. And trading Jamal Crawford for Ronnie Brewer, whether it comes to pass or not, is emphatically not a typical move for this franchise.

Now, any or all of these signings come with a price. Namely, that none of these guys can shoot. But the Hawks should, with Josh Smith and Al Horford and (a healthy) Joe Johnson and (an on-court) Jeff Teague should be able to get away with having a defense-first player on the court at all times. Smith and Horford, in particular, have carried a heavy defensive workload to keep the Hawks a league average defensive club the past two seasons. Who knows what they could accomplish with a little help on the perimeter? A lighter defensive workload might even make a positive impact for them, and the team, on the offensive end.

SI.com: Lowe: Hawks gamble with Crawford guarding Rose

Zach Lowe uses his keen analytical eye and his full-time, professional basketball writing job to put the lie to these two sentences from my recap of Game 2:

Teague again did as good a job on Derrick Rose as could reasonably be expected before switching over to chase Kyle Korver around in the fourth quarter. The Hawks could make the change because Rose remained content (or capable only) to shoot pull-up jumpers when Jamal Crawford sagged six-to-eight feet off of him.

Lowe went to the tape and confirmed that the Hawks got killed on possessions where Crawford guarded Rose:

Crawford defended Rose on 17 of Chicago’s half-court possessions Wednesday, or about 20 percent of Chicago’s total trips down the floor. That is not a token number; that is a significant chunk of game time.

So I decided to re-watch all 17 of those possessions to see how Crawford and Atlanta managed. Nearly all of them came with Kyle Korver on the floor, and that’s not a coincidence; the Hawks do not believe Crawford is qualified to chase Korver and navigate screens, and so when Korver enters the game, they shift Teague onto Korver and Crawford onto Rose. Otherwise, Crawford typically guards Keith Bogans or Ronnie Brewer.

In any case, here are the results:

• Chicago’s offense: 23 points on 17 possessions

That works out to 135 points per 100 possessions. The league’s best offense typically scores about 114 points per 100 possessions. In other words, Chicago did rather nicely.

• Rose’s stats: 4-of-8, eight points, three assists, zero turnovers

So on all the rest of Chicago’s possessions, including fast-breaks, Rose shot 6-of-19, dished out seven assists and committed all eight of his turnovers.

Now, this isn’t all on Crawford. He had nothing to do with the three-pointer Bogans hit late in the first quarter as the shot clock was running down on a Rose/Crawford possession. But overall, a lot of Chicago’s points on these possessions stemmed from either Crawford’s inability to deal with Rose or the height advantage Korver enjoys over Teague. In fact, either Rose or Korver served as they key offensive player (either the shooter or the last passer who set up the shot) on 16 of those 17 possessions. That is remarkably smart offense.

HoopSpeak: Koremenos: Atlanta's new pick and roll defense

Brett Koremenos pulls out the FastDraw to break down how the Hawks are effectively defending Orlando's 3/5 pick-and-roll.

NBA Playbook: Round 1 Preview: Orlando vs. Atlanta

Today, my recently made friend* in real life, Sebatian Pruiti, put up the best and most thorough preview of the upcoming playoff series between the Atlanta Hawks and the Orlando Magic you will read.

This post may be up for awhile. Coverage of the final four games of the regular season will depend on the events therein. Breaking news--an injury, Pape Sy's NBA debut, Al Horford attempting a free throw--will be worthy of attention. Going through the motions will not.

*Sebastian at least tolerated me. Really, that's all I ask.

The Silver Lining to Last Night's Loss to the Spurs

It exists and it's relevant to the next meaningful game the Hawks will play (approximately 10 days from now). The Hawks did a good job defending the three-point line. Not so much because the Spurs shot 12.5% from beyond the arc but because just 8 of San Antonio's 74 field goal attempts came from that range. Most impressively, the Hawks repeatedly ran Matt Bonner off the three-point line. Bonner was 1-8 from the field with six of his eight field goal attempts coming inside of 10 feet. In his previous 61 games this season, Bonner attempted just 58 shots inside of 10 feet. From that range, Bonner entered the game making 48.3% of his shots whereas his eFG% from beyond the arc was almost 70%. Good trade.

Now, this didn't help the Hawks win the game because San Antonio had three guys (Parker, Ginobili, and Hill) who could attack off the dribble and the Hawks had (at most) one guard (plus Al Horford) on the floor at any given time who could reasonably be expected to stay in front of his man and did not have Josh Smith providing help defense at the rim.

The Orlando Magic have just one player (Jameer Nelson) who can consistently bedevil the Hawks off the bounce so a commitment to defending the three-point line aggressively could pay greater dividends (assuming the Hawks are healthy) in the upcoming playoff series than it did last night.

Sweet, Delicious Highlights: Hawks/Bulls 3.2.11

I've been in Boston* for about two hours. Hopefully these will help tide you over until I can more thoroughly encapsulate Pape Sy's D-League career.

*More to follow in this space and at TrueHoop over the weekend concerning the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.

Al Horford dunks on Luol Deng to give the Hawks their first lead of the game, or, Al Horford makes Bob Rathbun's voice break:



Marvin Williams blocks Derrick Rose's dunk attempt:



Joe Johnson defends a point guard brilliantly:

NBA Playbook: Kirk Hinrich's Game Winning Charge

Sebastian Pruiti breaks down a rather new sight for Hawks fans: a point guard moving to make a key defensive play in the paint.

Top 5 Atlanta Hawks To Be Trusted Guarding Really Good Point Guards

As evidenced by Larry Drew's actions the past week when presented with the conundra of Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook.

1) Joe Johnson (natch)
2) Mo Evans
3) Mike Bibby
4) Jamal Crawford/zone defense
5) Jeff Teague

Atlanta Hawks Pace and Efficiency Graphs

Looking at the point scored and allowed per 100 possessions from each game, we can see that Atlanta's best defensive results of the season have been concentrated in the last 16 games:

click to enlarge

Here's the game-by-game season average efficiency graph for the Hawks this season which shows both the team's improving defensive efficiency and the team's declining offensive efficiency:

click to enlarge

Sine I've done the work, here's a graph of the team's offensive possessions from each game:

click to enlarge

And the game-by-game season average of offensive possessions:

click to enlarge

The Hawks are again 27th in the league in pace this season.