Hawks get defensive entering rematch with LeBron James
CLEVELAND — The Atlanta Hawks started the season off 7-1, yet something just didn’t feel right.
The Hawks’ offense, which hummed along so smoothly toward 60 wins and the Eastern Conference finals a season ago, was not as potent as before.
Soon after, the Hawks were hovering above .500, following up promising winning streaks with mini losing slides. Coach Mike Budenholzer had long stressed defense, but the Hawks began to realize that defense — and not their flowing read-and-react offense that was the darling of their surprise season a year ago — was going to be the key to any success they had this season and to stopping these roller-coaster turns.
“I think for a while, we were just kind of waiting for last year to happen again, and all of the sudden we are going to get open shots and things would be easier for us,” Hawks guard Kyle Korver said. “I think there was a good healthy realization that, ‘Hey, we got to evolve.’ We all got to evolve in life right? You just can’t keep on doing the same thing forever.”
Korver recalls a four-game road trip in January when defense first started to sink in.
“I don’t think we played particularly well,” said Korver, whose Hawks lost five of seven games during and shortly after that West Coast swing. “But there was an understanding amongst ourselves that we had to change some things up.
“I think everything started to shift. I kept on saying, the ship is turning. It is like this big, huge [cruise ship] that’s turning.”
As the Hawks embark on another seven-game series against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Korver and his teammates believe Atlanta is better than the team that got swept by LeBron James & Co. in the conference finals a year ago.
“Right now we are healthy,” Hawks point guard Jeff Teague said. “And we go in with a sense of urgency that we can play with the team and got to make the most of it.
“I think we were slowing up when we came into the series last year,” Teague said of facing the Cavs in last season’s playoffs. “I think we reached our peak kind of early. Right now, we are still growing defensively and getting a lot better. I think the offense will catch up with it.”
The Hawks’ offense might not be as sharp as a year ago — Korver needed time to get back into a flow after offseason ankle and elbow surgeries — but their defense might be the best it’s been during the Budenholzer era.
The Hawks finished sixth in points allowed per game at 99.2 this past regular season. But they were one of only two NBA teams under 100 in defensive efficiency — Atlanta (98.8) was second to San Antonio (96.6). The year before, the Hawks were seventh in defensive efficiency — a statistic Budenholzer says he uses as the best statistical defensive barometer.
So far this postseason, Atlanta (91.3) is third in defensive efficiency behind Golden State (89.2) and San Antonio (91.2).
“Last year we got mauled on the offensive glass,” small forward Kent Bazemore said. “This season we took pride in that. … We have ramped it up defensively, given ourselves a chance to win games. Last year we were a talented group, we made shots all season. We kind of let the air out of the sails at the end of last season. This year we have hung our hat on defense because our offense has come and go. Defense has been our staple throughout the season.
“We had to adapt in order to give ourselves a chance to win and get stops and weather the storm [when missing shots],” Bazemore added. “Coach Bud, as a human being, it is kind of hard to change on the fly, but I think we did a great job of trying to get our transition [defense better] and focusing on details more on defensive end.”
Al Horford said “80 percent” of Atlanta’s film time is spent on defense. Certainly the Hawks watched a lot of film on James, who torched them in the Eastern Conference finals last season, averaging 30.3 points, 11.0 rebounds and 9.3 assists in the sweep.
And in two regular-season meetings last month against Atlanta, James blistered the Hawks for an average of 31.5 points, 11 rebounds and 7.5 assists in Cavs wins.
While the Hawks had great success in the first round surrounding Celtics All-Star Isaiah Thomas with multiple defenders and smothering him in the paint while daring other Celtics to make perimeter shots, Atlanta might not necessarily employ the same tactic against the much bigger James.
“That is what we tried to do in the last series with him and he just found every shooter and they 3-pointed us to death,” Korver said. “So it is a totally different scenario [than against Boston]. James, Kyrie Irving, they both will have the ball in their hands a lot — they are both great in one-on-one situations and pick-and-roll. … And they have a lot of great shooting and Tristan Thompson and a lot of other things that we have to worry about. We can’t sag everybody in the middle thinking we learned our lesson last year.”
But if the Hawks can defend with the same effort, energy and purpose they did against Boston, perhaps they can give Cleveland more of a fight than last postseason. During the first round, the Hawks had spurts in which they challenged almost every shot Boston took, rotated well and made life in the paint extremely difficult.
Paul Millsap and Horford both averaged 2.6 blocks, while the Hawks averaged 8.6 rejections per game in the first round. Even without DeMarre Carroll from a year ago, the Hawks feel they are better all-around defensively.
One year ago, a lot of the talk surrounding the Hawks was about their beautiful offense. Now before they face James again, the Hawks are talking about making things ugly with stifling defense.
“Since we quickly realized that you don’t have a lot of good shooting nights, you have to be able to rely on your defense,” Horford said. “I guess you can say that is all we talk about, the defensive end.”
