Since Nate McMillan's appointment as interim head coach Atlanta have been red-hot, throwing themselves thick into the fight for the Eastern Conference's fourth seed
Monday 29 March 2021 12:33, UK
The trade deadline dust has settled and John Collins will be a member of the Atlanta Hawks for the rest of the season. And why not? They have been flying recently.
Losses to the LA Clippers and the Sacramento Kings earlier this week signalled the end of an eight-straight winning streak that catapulted the Hawks to having a 22-22 record.
However, they bounced back with a 124-108 rollicking of the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, as both their young stars Trae Young and John Collins put up huge numbers. Young had 21 points and 15 assists while Collins put up a career-high 38 points, as well as snagging 12 rebounds.
They remain at .500 (23-23) for the season after a loss to the Denver Nuggets on Sunday night but the turnaround from a 14-20 team to currently being in the midst of a turbulent battle for a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference began the day head coach Lloyd Pierce was let go and Nate McMillan stepped up from his assistant role.
There is always a honeymoon period under a new coach when they get a job. A team will be making the extra effort to listen - partly because they won’t have heard everything that’s being said before. The players also want to rally and show that there might have been a problem that is now fixed. And there have been a few problems.
Reports suggested that Pierce and point guard Trae Young were not exactly singing Kum Ba Ya, and the All-Star was keen to fast-forward the re-build that Atlanta were working towards. Youngsters such as Young, Kevin Huerter and John Collins were good but the team brought in Clint Capela last season, added Bogdan Bogdanovic in the off-season, got rid of some dead weight like Vince Carter and Jabari Parker, and gave more responsibility to the rising De’Andre Hunter.
The addition of the lane-clogging Capela and pivot away from high-flying forward/center Collins made it seem as though the latter might be moved at the trade deadline. The winning streak changed things. Instead, the team tweaked assets around the young core: swapping little-used Rajon Rondo for perennial scoring threat Lou Williams and two second round draft picks.
This doesn’t move the needle in terms of their playoff success, but gives Atlanta another scoring guard to add to the depth of Huerter, Hunter and Bogdanović.
They probably didn’t need Williams, but Rondo hadn’t done much either this season - having only played in 27 of 44 games. But he isn’t the only one who has missed time: Hunter, Bogdanović, Danilo Gallinari, Tony Snell, Cam Reddish and rookie Onyeka Okongwu have all missed games this year due to injury or distancing regulations.
Having these guys back in recent weeks has undoubtedly contributed to their success by giving the team greater depth, but it’s not necessarily made them better offensively - they are scoring two points fewer per game since March 1 compared to the whole season.
Part of this is because McMillan is a coach who focuses on defense.
In his first year coaching the Seattle SuperSonics in 2000, they were allowing the fifth-most points in the league. In his second season, McMillan’s team allowed the 12th fewest points and they continued to become tougher and more stingey, becoming the eight best defensive team in the league during his third year.
In 2003-04, Ray Allen went down for a chunk of the season and the wheels came off, and by 2005, McMillan had moved to coach the Portland Trail Blazers while the SuperSonics moved away to Oklahoma City. In Rip City, he took a 21-61 team that was in the top third in terms of allowing opponents to score, to being the third-best defense in the NBA by 2009-10.
His impact as the leading voice on the bench was immediate for the Hawks. Since 1 March, they have allowed the second fewest points per game in the league, behind the Miami Heat. Prior to that date, this season they had allowed the ninth most points per game.
The guards are fighting over screens - even Young, who is prone to stopping dead when another player gets in the way - while the bigs hedge enough for the backcourt to recover. The communication is better, and the team looks like it is putting more effort in.
It might simply be that the main voice they are hearing in the huddle is McMillan’s defensive tone, but the coach has also slowed the Hawks to one of the slowest paces in the league on offense, to just 94.8 possession per game, down from 99.6 between the start of the season and February 28.
It has been more methodical, and some plays have been called to set up Capela or Collins. These can be high-low actions or simply screening for each other on the weak side to give the other space on the block to work.
The slower pace also encourages closer shots with shorter rebounds, and it gives time for Capela to set up on the offensive glass - he is averaging one extra offensive rebound per game in March.
The ball is still in Young’s hands a lot and the most popular play is a simple pick and roll. The other option is a modified double drag screen that sees one player, usually Collins or Capela, screen Huerter on the block so he can spring up to the top of the key. Huerter will then set a pick and pop for Young, immediately followed by a Young-Capela pick and roll while Collins clears to the corner. It often results in a Young floater in the lane, which he is hitting 45 per cent of the time, or there is plenty of space to pull up from three. It also gives Capela a chance to shoot a hook shot or rise up for an alley-oop slam.
Removing Pierce from his head coaching duties was criticised at the time, but maybe changes to the offense, defense and overall effort is what this roster needed.
It might also have something to do with good timing by the front office. Coaches are often fired ahead of an easier point in the schedule to give the new face an opportunity to shine. The win streak was compiled against the Miami Heat without Jimmy Butler, the Orlando Magic, Toronto Raptors, Sacramento Kings, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and the LA Lakers - a game in which the Hawks’ Solomon Hill fell on LeBron James ankle.
Apart from the first and the last, against teams without their best players, no other opponent is in a position to play in the playoffs - but still those eight Ws were exciting enough to change the teams username on Twitter to the HaWWWWWWWWks
Since then, the LA Clippers used their bench to storm from behind to claim a victory, and the Kings beat them in a close game. They got back to winnings ways against a Warriors team again missing their star players in Draymond Green and Steph Curry, but had no such luck with Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets on Sunday night.
The dust has settled on Atlanta winning eight games in a row. Any time someone reels off consecutive victories like that, it’s an achievement, but the streak has arguably put the Hawks exactly where they should have been all season - playing .500 ball and battling for a playoff spot.
Questions still loom over Collins. He is a free agent at the end of this season and will likely have interest from a number of teams in the NBA, but he has expressed a desire to stay with the franchise that drafted him.
The team is committed to attempting a run at the playoff since it is within their grasp, and if they make it we could see the same core return in the hope that experience and continued development will naturally see an improved record. If the Hawks flight falls short of the playoffs again this year, expect to see some ruffled feathers this summer.
