5 Keys for Atlanta Hawks to Defeat Washington Wizards in 2nd Round
The top-seeded Atlanta Hawks finally looked like their 60-win selves on Friday night, as they dominated the Brooklyn Nets 111-87 in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series. With the win, Atlanta advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time since 2011.
Now, Atlanta's attention turns to the fifth-seeded Washington Wizards, who haven't played since they finished a four-game sweep of the fourth-seeded Toronto Raptors on April 26.
The Hawks took the season series against the Wizards 3-1, with the only Washington win coming on April 12 when all five Atlanta starters were rested. However, considering the teams' respective performances in the first round, this matchup should be more tightly contested than it was in the regular season.
How can Atlanta stop the momentum Washington gained from its impressive first-round performance? There are five things the Hawks must emphasize to ensure a series win.
Lots of Ball Movement
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In the first round, the Wizards had the distinct pleasure of playing the Raptors, a team that likes to let the ball stick to its top three scorers: DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and Louis Williams.
All of these players prefer to create their own shots. DeRozan, Lowry and Williams were unassisted on 65.6, 72.2 and 75.0 percent of their made field goals, respectively, in the series. Overall, the Raptors made the second-fewest passes per contest (262.2) of any playoff team in the first round.
Now, it's up to the Hawks to make sure Washington gets the rudest of defensive awakenings.
Atlanta, in contrast to Toronto, loves to move the ball. The Hawks passed 314.8 times per game in the first round, approximately 50 dishes more than the Raptors. Atlanta also notched 25.7 assists per contest, compared to just 19.5 for Toronto.
In the regular season, the Wizards had much more trouble winning when the other team moved the ball well. In their 46 wins, opponents averaged just 18.2 assists. In their 36 losses, however, the opposition accumulated 22.2 dimes.
All that is to say a scrambling Wizards defense is exactly the defense the Hawks want and need to get.
Taking Advantage of Open Shots
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If you had to boil down the Hawks' struggles against the Nets to a single factor, it would be their inability to make open shots.
In the regular season, Atlanta made 46.1 percent of its attempts in which no defender was within six feet. That success rate dipped to 43.5 percent in their first-round series, but it was just 39.8 percent before the Hawks' great offensive performance in Game 6, as I outlined here.
Since the Hawks weren't hitting their open shots for the majority of the series, the Nets could hang back and clog the paint. So when Atlanta tried to get baskets inside to make up for its outside shooting deficiencies, it was met with stiff resistance. The Hawks then had to go back to long-range attempts, but they were still cold. It was really a vicious cycle and contributed to many offensive dry spells that allowed the Nets to make a run.
Smarter Play from the Bench Guards
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Dennis Schroder and Kent Bazemore versus Jarrett Jack and Alan Anderson was supposed to be a tight bench backcourt battle between the Hawks' youthful athleticism and the Nets' veteran savvy.
In the first round, veteran savvy won out. Pretty resoundingly, in fact.
Jack and Anderson each averaged more than 11 points per game with excellent efficiency while Schroder and Bazemore struggled with ghastly turnovers and bad shot selection, respectively.
Schroder may be a future star, but he still has a lot of experiential knowledge to gain about the balance between aggressiveness and control. The 21-year-old point guard forced drives and passes too much, resulting in 5.1 turnovers per 36 minutes in the first-round series.
Bazemore is 25 years old, but he's still relatively new to playing meaningful playoff minutes. Despite being ice-cold from three-point range, the shooting guard continued to hoist from there instead of getting into the paint. For the series, he knocked down one of 13 long-range attempts.
Schroder was improving his composure throughout the regular season, and Bazemore isn't especially known to struggle with shot selection, so let's hope their first-round performances were an aberration.
Making John Wall a Jump-Shooter
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You can classify this in the "easier said than done" category.
John Wall might be the NBA's fastest player with the ball, plus he has an uncanny ability to finish in the paint. If he isn't completing the drive with a layup or dunk, he's dumping the ball off to an open teammate for an easy deuce or kicking it out to a three-point shooter. Not surprisingly, the Wizards point guard was second in assists during the regular season (10.0 per game) and is first so far in the playoffs (12.5 per game).
Somehow, Atlanta needs to make Wall, the focal point of Washington's offense, a jump-shooter. In the playoffs, he's made only 10-of-39 field goals (25.6 percent) away from the rim. He was better in the regular season from the same areas (37.7 percent), but it's still a weakness in his game.
The onus will be on Jeff Teague to save a little more energy for defense than he usually does. He's not quite as quick as Wall, but if he's making a concerted effort to contain the Wizards guard every possession, he'll be in good shape.
Wall's 6'4" size also presents a challenge to the 6'2" Teague. If Teague is on the bench, or if he's just having trouble containing Wall, Bazemore could be a good cover. He's 6'5", moves well laterally and is long enough to get a good contest on Wall's shots even when giving him that slight cushion to prevent easy drives.
In fact, playing fundamentally sound defense on every player, not just Wall, will be key for the Hawks, especially if they miss a lot of their outside shots again this series.
According to Atlanta head coach Mike Budenholzer, via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Chris Vivlamore, "The offense comes and goes, and that happens in a game, in a series, but we can continue to focus on our defense and be good there."
Forcing Randy Wittman into New Rotations
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If you paid attention to the Wizards-Raptors series, you probably noticed that Washington head coach Randy Wittman started using a lineup he had barely used during the regular season: Wall, Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, Paul Pierce and Marcin Gortat.
The five-man unit played more than 31 minutes together in the first round (only the starting lineup of Wall, Beal, Pierce, Nene and Gortat was used more) and accumulated a plus-32.7 net rating.
At first glance, the Hawks have a great chance to wreak havoc on both of the aforementioned groups.
The first, with Pierce as a stretch 4, is just asking for Paul Millsap to dominate it. The Raptors didn't cover Pierce with a power forward agile enough to step out and contest his three-pointers, but Millsap does have the quickness to guard the perimeter. On the other end, Millsap could take Pierce into the post and score or draw a foul every time.
In the Wizards' starting group, both Nene and Gortat are plodders who could struggle with the quickness of Millsap and Al Horford. The Wizards' posts would do some damage to the undersized Hawks big men, but it would come at the cost of wide-open jumpers and blow-bys from Millsap and Horford.
If the Hawks find and consistently exploit the mismatches in these two lineups, Wittman will be forced to trot out groups that usually don't play together. This benefits the Hawks, who pride themselves on chemistry both on and off the court.
All statistics are from Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com/stats and updated through May 2 unless otherwise indicated.
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