Hawks reach new lows in home loss to Wizards…

The Atlanta Hawks lost 127-99 to the Washington Wizards on Saturday night at State Farm Arena, following a heartbreaking loss to the Indiana Pacers on Friday night.

Trae Young led all Atlanta scorers with 21 points, while Saddiq Bey contributed 16 points. Kyle Kuzma finished with 29 points for the Wizards. Jordan Poole tallied 20 points.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this game.

It probably should have begun as soon as the final buzzer sounded on Friday night, when the Pacers defeated the Hawks convincingly at home without Tyrese Haliburton. That was a pretty bad loss, and it should have set a fire under the Hawks — against the 6-31 Washington Wizards — to get back on track in a season that hasn’t gone as planned.

Despite being on a back-to-back, the Hawks had the perfect opportunity at home to annihilate the Wizards and regain their composure following the Indiana game. They had already defeated them three times this season and had lost six straight games prior to this one. How did the Hawks start the game with that in mind? The first possession of the game ended with a shot clock violation when Jalen Johnson passed up the shot in the corner and offloaded it to Young, and the clock ran out. It was hardly the best way to start a game, but it served as the ideal foreshadowing for the next 47 minutes.

The Wizards opened a double-digit lead in the second quarter, increased it to 20 points in the third, took a 28-point lead into the fourth quarter, and led by as much as 30 points. And the Hawks emptied their bench with four minutes remaining. That is it. Here’s your game in a nutshell.

The Wizards performed much like they did throughout the season series: Kuzma scored a lot of points through three quarters, the Wizards couldn’t rebound, their guard play from Tyus Jones and Delon Wright was strong…it was a typical Washington Wizards game. For the Hawks, it was a stark contrast.

Offensively, the Hawks put on a horror show all night long, and it came in almost every form: good shots that were simply missed (Bey had a few of these), poor shot selection (Young’s shot selection in the first quarter was poor), turnovers, standing around, offensive miscues, missed bunnies, backcourt violations, botched rebounds… It was, quite frankly, a disaster.

The Hawks have fallen short of expectations this season, but last night was the first time I really thought, “This team looks dysfunctional out there.”

That thought stemmed from the Hawks’ fragmented play on both ends of the court. weak shot selection, lethargic offensive execution, standing around offensively, sloppy turnovers, weak rotations, delayed rotations (Delon Wright was given a lot of time to shoot on a handful of occasions).

I was present for the Dennis Schröder-Dwight Howard catastrophe, which had flaws but at least had Paul Millsap to save it from becoming complete carnage. Last night was the first time I’ve seen a Hawks team appear to be in chaos on the court, as if they had run out of solutions — as if the outside noise had finally gotten to them — and it was unsettling to watch that manifest itself on the court. It’s not to say that their season is over (though it may appear so, they still have a very realistic chance of making the Play-In Tournament with more than half of the season remaining), but they’re certainly a team that needs to do some serious soul-searching and find some answers in their reflection.

Postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder conceded that the Hawks still had a chance to win the game at halftime, but that the third quarter — in which the Wizards outscored Altanta 41-28 — was pivotal, and that the Hawks needed to regroup.

“I think we hung in there in the first half,” Snyder explained. “We were down 11 at halftime and hadn’t made a shot. If we continued to defend—not that we were perfect—I thought we’d be in a good position. Clearly, the third quarter was a dagger. “We need to regroup.”

“We have to find a way,” Young continued. “I’ve been down before and found a way to fight back, and that’s exactly what this is. We are in a bad situation right now. We have to sort it out; we’ll get through it; I’m not worried about it.”

Snyder identified communication as an urgent way to change, highlighting particular places where this was evident.

“Collectively I think we need to communicate, if there’s one thing that you point to that I see it’s not there that can fix a lot of things, whatever those situations are,” Snyder went on to say. “Whether it’s small-small pick-and-roll or transition defense, we have to be willing to talk, point, and do whatever it takes to get everyone on the same page on both ends. I believe we made a terrific shot selection tonight. We did not see the ball go in. There are still moments when we pass shots up, but we must continue to hunt for open opportunities. It’s also difficult not to see the ball go in.”

Young was also questioned about the state of communication and communication in the face of adversity, and he mentioned ‘new concepts’ and players not knowing where they need to be offensively as reasons for failures in communication.

“It’s tough to communicate, especially out on the floor,” Young said of communicating during difficult times. “New concepts…it’s not that guys aren’t attempting to do certain things; it’s just that they don’t know where they need to go, and we need to talk about it. If we don’t know where we are, we should keep talking and learning from one another. Nothing good happens overnight. This is a process, and while our record is now poor, we can and will improve significantly. This is a process, and I’m not concerned.”

I’d like to take a moment to appreciate some of Young’s honesty and sincerity in his postgame comments last night, particularly about Snyder, ‘new concepts’, and the Hawks’ ‘ass’ record. It was refreshing to hear.

Snyder emphasized defensive communication, whereas Young focused on offensive communication, which is intriguing and reflective of their priorities/philosophies. They’re both accurate, of course, and there’s a clear misunderstanding on both sides. In terms of defensive communication, the Hawks clearly needed to be mindful that moving John Collins would have an influence on this side of the game — there was always a possibility of regression defensively in this area because Collins was the team’s defensive voice. Obviously, with Collins out of the picture, Johnson has benefited, and he is one of the few consensus agreements on this team going forward, but it is worth noting that communication is clearly an issue, and it appears that the Hawks have not had anyone step up in this regard since Collins was traded.

Young’s comment on ‘new concepts’ is both intriguing and frightening. With summer practice, training camp, and 38 games under their belts this season, you’d expect things to be further along than Young’s views suggest. But Young insists that the players trust in Snyder and that the process will take time.

“Quin is such a cerebral coach, cerebral person,” Young remarked. “He needs time, and he needs people in there who will listen and put up the effort that he requires. It’s a lot, but it has the potential to be quite effective. This is going to take some time. The guys believe in him. Practice helps. It’s difficult to practice when you have back-to-backs, and it’s even more difficult when you play a couple of days after. I know it annoys him since he can’t make as much of an impression on us as he would like. We’re a young crew, so there will be mishaps and complications, but it will work. “I truly believe that.”

Snyder is unlikely to confess to challenges establishing his system, but these statements suggest that, thus far, there has been difficulty in adapting and implementing how Snyder wants to play, which has been a cause of aggravation for him. This is a tough place to be 38 games in, with playoff hopes all but dead, and, once again, a path through the Play-In appears to be the only way out, barring a spectacular turnaround…or trade, about which there has been rising chatter.

On the matter of outside noise, Snyder was specifically asked if it had an affect on the Hawks’ play, and his response obviously deviated from the question at hand, essentially saying that the Hawks needed to recover.

“Tonight was different than last night,” Snyder explained. “We were trailing the entire game last night. It may not have appeared as different on the box score, but those were two distinct games. I believed we were getting solid shots tonight, but they weren’t going in. There were a few defensive possessions where we played well — Kuzma made a tough turnaround over an extended hand, the ball bounced the wrong way, and they got a shot — and we had to play through those. When you’re down or not performing well, there are always possibilities to look outside, and I believe our players remain focused. Regrouping is a fantastic thing right now. We are playing a lot of games, and we are 4-and-6. We have some games coming up soon and not much time to practice and recoup, so we’ll need to dig in and focus mentally. We can play better. Defensively, there was more focus, and we need to see the ball go in so we can have a totally different outcome.”

Not precisely answering the issue, but he’s unlikely to publicly state, ‘Yes, we’re affected by outside noise.’

He did, however, maintain that the Hawks’ missed shots had an impact on other elements of the game, with Snyder and Young using transition defense as an example.

“Guys are human,” Snyder said of missed shots that impacted play elsewhere. “There’s definitely a boost when you feel like you’re doing the right thing but aren’t rewarded for it, especially after you score. We’ve had awful shooting nights, but I don’t think we’ve moved on from that. Sometimes you have to take those if they’re nice photographs. That isn’t to suggest you shouldn’t drive the ball, but make rapid decisions and kick it. When the ball changed sides of the floor, I assumed positive things had transpired. Again, you’re in transition defense situations (after missed shots), and we were driving. We need to improve our ball-control, especially when we’re more aggressive in pick-and-roll; else, we’ll find ourselves in closeout situations. They made a number of those shots early on, and as the game progressed, they began to drive us in those clutch situations.”

“It can be deflating when you get the look you want, you get good shots and they just weren’t going in and it’s deflating,” he said. “I think we were still playing good defense in the first half, but when you miss shots that you’re used to hitting or supposed to make, it gives them a good look on the other end as well, especially if they get a rebound and we’re attacking the glass and we’re down in numbers, or I go in and shoot a layup and I’m on the ground, they have numbers.” Sometimes when the ball does not go in, they gain offensive momentum. They made several shots tonight, and that’s what may happen if we don’t shoot.”

I think the Hawks got several solid shots last night, but calling the shooting selection ‘good’ overall is a stretch.

Nobody played well.

Young shot 6-of-19 from the field and 2-of-10 from three, Dejounte Murray was a surprise inclusion in the end, but he could only score 13 points on 4-of-15 shooting, Jalen Johnson was 2-of-7 from the field and attempted only one shot in the second half, Saddiq Bey had great opportunities from three but couldn’t convert, shooting 5-of-13 overall, Clint Capela missed a number of bunnies for 2-of-8, and Bogdan Bogdanovic shot 5-of-13 from the field.

Furthermore, the Hawks’ streak of scoring 100 or more points in 94 consecutive games came to an end after they failed to obviously not reach 100 points but couldn’t muster four points in the final 3:10 of the game — a fittingly pitiful end to a horrible game in which the Hawks shot 34% from the field and 27.5% from three on 40 attempts.

A bad too, because that was a pretty amazing streak.

This was easily the Hawks’ worst loss of the season. There is no constructive approach to reduce this loss. Absolutely none. They’ll have a strong chance to respond versus a similarly awful club on Monday afternoon in the Spurs, but you could have said the same thing confidently following Friday’s loss to the Pacers.

Confidence in a comeback win over a bad team, like confidence in this team as a whole, has plummeted. There’s still plenty of season left, but what can be recovered from this new low will be a nagging concern – among many others as the trade deadline approaches.