Atlanta Hawks offer theories for why Heat dominated them in Game 1 of playoff series
For Atlanta Hawks coach Nate McMillan, his team’s disappointing performance in Game 1 of this Eastern Conference playoff series was largely a byproduct of insufficient ball movement and not matching the Heat’s intensity.
“Miami played it at another level,” he said. “We have to get to another level.”
But for one of Atlanta’s key players, the Heat’s dismantling of the Hawks was also question of strategic approach.
“Our game plan offensively and defensively needs to be better,” Danilo Gallinari said after Miami’s 115-91 win on Sunday, with Game 2 set for Tuesday night at 7:30 at FTX Arena (TNT, Bally Sports Sun).
To be clear, Gallinari wasn’t putting the onus entirely on the coaches. “I have no idea why we were not ready,” he said. “We need to get stops and run the floor better. We cannot be an excuse team.”
So do the Hawks need to make changes strategically or simply execute better?
“We are going to have to do both,” McMillan said Monday after a mandatory tape viewing session and optional practice. “Our execution has to be better [but] you have to make some changes and adjustments.”
Hawks guard Kevin Huerter summed it up this way on Monday: “Offensively, our movement has to be better.” For McMillan, that means often making several passes - not just one or two - before taking a shot.
Trae Young mentioned the team having “heavy legs” after a short turnaround from their Friday night win in Cleveland.
It’s inevitable that Young will go on an offensive binge at some point in this series; he’s too talented to expect reruns of his eight-point, 1-for-12 shooting performance in Game 1.
Whether this Atlanta team is capable of getting regular defensive stops is another question entirely.
None of the NBA’s 16 playoff teams permitted more points per 100 possessions than the Hawks, who were 26th overall in defensive rating.
And this new Heat lineup - with Max Strus starting and Duncan Robinson coming off the bench - has proved particularly problematic for them.
That lineup (with Caleb Martin playing instead of injured PJ Tucker) shot 55.6 percent overall and 42.3 percent on threes in a 113-109 Heat win on April 5.
Twelve days later, with Tucker back for Game 1, Miami shot 52.4 percent and 47.4 percent on threes.
So in two games in the past two weeks, Miami has shot 29 for 64 on threes against Atlanta.
“Offensively they have a lot of weapons and know how to use them,” Gallinari said. “They have good chemistry. They have been playing together for a while now.”
And the Hawks are even more vulnerable without Clint Capela, their top interior defender, out at least two more games with a hyperextended knee. “We miss Clint’s size,” Huerter said.
D’Andre Hunter, perhaps Atlanta’s best wing defender, said defending the Heat’s second unit can be tricky.
“They are both great shooters,” Hunter said of Robinson and Tyler Herro. “Just having them on the floor... it creates a lot of problems. But we will be good....
“We let them get a lot of open shots. We were kind of over-helping at times. Just really getting out to them, that would limit a lot of the open shots that they had.... We will figure it out.”
Figuring it out offensively usually isn’t difficult for a Hawks team that produced the NBA’s highest offensive efficiency rating this season.
The Heat’s defense makes it a challenge, but it’s also unrealistic to expect Atlanta to continue to shoot as poorly as it did in Game 1 (38.7 percent overall and 27.8 percent on three-pointers), considering Atlanta shot 47 percent in the regular season (seventh best in the league) and 37.4 percent on threes (second best, barely behind the Heat at 37.9).
“They are a very good defensive team, really all five guys that are out there,” McMillan said. “They are good individual defenders and connected as a group.”
Young seemed to agree with Gallinari that changes must be made in Atlanta’s game plan.
“We obviously have to go back to the drawing board and get some things switched up,” Young said.
Hawks forward John Collins - who played Sunday for the first time since March 11 - said the Heat “is a different team than we’ve seen in the regular season” because of the lineup changes, including Strus’ March 28 insertion into the starting group.
McMillan said he wasn’t sure if Collins, who logged 21 minutes in Game 1, will be on a minutes restriction in Game 2. Huerter said Collins’ “athleticism” is missed when he’s not on the court.
This story was originally published April 18, 2022 at 3:20 PM.
