HAWKS POSTCAST: Poor 2nd Half Shooting Puts Win Streak In Jeopardy

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Welcome to the Hawk's Post-Cast, your instant game reaction for the Atlanta Hawks.

Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team, Every Day.

Welcome into the Hawk's Post-Cast, you're home for the best Atlanta Hawk's talk.

It's quick hitting local insight after every game.

You can't get anywhere but right here at Lockdown.

I'm your host, Taditra Batista Long, Syvey is in B.A. and College Basketball analyst,

the Shawn Tape, the Hawk's Post-Cast, is part of the Lockdown Podcast Network.

Now the number one sports podcast network, whether it's seating in the east or stringing

together winds, eight is great.

We'll talk about that and how the Hawk's improved to a game over 500 at home with the 108-97

win over the Brooklyn Nets tonight.

And Tape, your take was, it got caught up in the name on the front of the jersey.

I think they did to nature and I'm going to tell you why because I think it's just, I

get it.

And I know people have a conversation about the band matter bio thing.

I get when you're playing a professional, a professional team is a professional team

no matter how you look at it.

And I do have understanding or overstanding rather that no matter the circumstances, but

when you are in position to not only win your eighth row in the most consecutive games

won in the NBA so far, by the way, their longest winning streak, the Atlanta Hawks in the

last five years, teams are going to be taking note towards going on, especially down the

stretch, late in the season, and going to be trying to play spoiler, excuse me.

And you got the big red target on your back and everything else.

And then just that, of course, this would be the game that you just can't, you know,

appear to make, you can make almost, you make so many great shots, especially from three

in the first half.

And then it's oranges and apples night and day in the second half.

And I think that they got caught up in that just a little bit, not being able to make

shots is one thing and not being able to make shots.

But this is the wrong time that you just didn't make shots and you play with different

energy than you did in the second half versus what you did the first half.

And when that catches up with you and that team doesn't go away, now, I think that's

what makes the biggest difference because you can start to pull away all over again.

I feel like.

Yeah.

But it's totally different once you let them back in and give them some confidence.

Now they're just like that little net, that little fly at the barbecue that just won't

go away for nothing.

And that's what the nets were.

And I get it not having Dyson Daniels and all of that, but they, you know, as our primary

best defender, but they didn't have their primary best offense player either in Michael

Porter, Jr.

And so a little bit of a let down, the win is the win is a win.

I know that's the way that to need your petite roles.

But they got to make up a little bit, I get a win, but I, I wanted to see it a little

bit more significantly than that.

Yeah.

I am with you on that.

And here's why my tone has changed on it just a little bit, maybe like I took a five

degree move because the Hawks are 35 and 31.

What does that mean?

That means that you've now played 66 games.

So essentially, you have 16 games to try to fight your way into one of three spaces.

The 7C, the 6C, the 7C, they're the 8C.

How you play down this stretch is so important because you have the opportunity, I mean like

a legit opportunity, I think if you go like 12 and 4 and remember, they have the easiest

strength of schedule, the rest of the way of just about any team and all of the NBA.

So if you have that, you've got to then take advantage of that, right?

And so 12 and 4 for them is not out of the question.

It's just that if you're playing this close this many times, then it does make you concerned

that it can become out of the question.

So when we look back, for example, at a Brooklyn game for the Hawks, what it was just back

on February 22nd.

So we're talking essentially about less than three weeks ago, and it kind of followed

the same pattern where you look in that third quarter when the Hawks were a little shaky,

Brooklyn outscored them in that game 31 to 29 in the third quarter, Brooklyn also outscored

them tonight, 29 to 25 in the third quarter, that's something that we shouldn't see.

And then you and I talked about this a couple nights ago, Dallas Mavericks pretty much ate

them up in the third quarter.

So I appreciate that the Hawks have the ability to pull it together for a fourth quarter

come back.

It's just that and beat the teams that you're supposed to beat.

I think we're just saying that as you get down this all-important stretch, we really just

want you to smoke these teams because then for those few games where you do play some

viable competition like the magic that you're going to play, and you are fighting within

that five spot in that 10 spot, and that's one of the teams you're fighting, then these

kinds of games are kind of showing, hey, we don't want to see that.

We don't want to see three solid quarters.

You need to see four solid quarters because these teams are in the same boat as you.

They want either out of the plan or they want top of the plan.

So I agree with you in that slight caveat, and that's what my take was.

Once again, we have a conversation where we like the solid play in the first half.

Tonight, the Hawks outscored in that 30-21 in that first quarter.

Second quarter, and that's got by and by two.

That didn't bother me as much as what I saw in the third quarter, right?

Because I feel like that's the conversation we've had the last couple of games, and that's

kind of the quarter where, again, when you're playing teams that are legit, teams that

are competitive, teams that are going for the same thing that you're going for, like you

can't go 32% from the field and 9% from the three point.

You literally, and from the free throw line, that was surprisingly where they did okay

in the third quarter.

Correct.

Very surprising.

You can't make one free throw, like, I mean, one three pointer, like that's not going

to cut it.

So I think that's where we're saying, hey, we like that you won.

It's good to have an eight-game win streak.

That builds confidence.

That shows chemistry.

You're down, Dyson Daniels, and it shows that you can still get it done with the back

court of Nikhil Walker, Alexander Walker, and CJ McCullough.

That's great.

But just make sure you don't lean too much into laying back when you come back in that

second half, when in actual reality, you can just put, like, the gauntlet down, and then

you can cruise maybe in that fourth quarter.

For sure, and you've got to keep your foot on the gas, you know, and that's just, that's

kind of where we're at.

That's just what it is.

I mean, you know, again, I reiterate, missing shots is one thing just to be missing shots,

but it very much had an energy and a feel as if they were kind of playing with their

food.

And should have known better because this is also a team that took the league's attention

and eyes raised from a most recent win, I guess the number one seeded Detroit pistons

less than a week ago, where they were down, and that's were down by like 20 something,

20 plus points, and then concluded the game on an 18 to 6 running ended up winning and

beating the pistons.

So you have to know what's going around you, taking notes.

The one thing that I am happy to hear about is especially because granted they didn't

have Michael Porter Jr. and whatever else comes along with that from a scoring standpoint

and all that, but they still had bigs.

They had still had Danny Wolf, who's a seven footer, albeit a rookie, whatever.

But also had Nicholas Claxton, who people in this market is very familiar with playing

at University of Georgia, one of the best defenders I think in the front court of front

and this league rebounders as well, excuse me, also Noah Clowney, being another one who's

a very solid rebounder, maybe not two guys that scored a ton of points, but guys that

defend and guys that have made names for themselves in this league based off of rebounding.

So the Atlanta Hawks outrebounded the Brooklyn Nets by digits, which I thought was really

impressive and probably the most impressive thing that I'm always happy to talk about is

the offensive rebounding.

17 offensive rebounds to four.

By the way, the Atlanta Hawks coming into tonight, this in offensive rebounding since

the all star break and also adding a 10 in one record when they're doing so.

So congrats to the Hawks on definitely finding a way to crash the glass and create second

chance opportunities.

And also going against a team in Brooklyn where defense is actually something that they

do decently like they're kind of right above the middle of the pack in overall defensive

efficiency across the association.

So for the Hawks to be able to hang in there in a very critical area, which is making

sure they crash the board of both ends, yeah, absolutely impressive to me and for me as

well.

And also impressive, a guy that we say, hey, if at any time there was a need for him to

step up and be that type of player, the game, that type of X factor, it was tonight and

we will talk about him next up.

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So we have a, it's interesting because you and I talked about this pre show, a bunch

of players stepped up at different times in this game.

But there's one player in particular where you said, it's about time and he is our player

of the game.

This is the walk done player of the game.

Sometimes when you get your role switched, it may be an energizer, it may be a motivator,

it may really kind of reset things for you.

And it feels like it's been that way for Zachary Risa Shea, coach, Quinn Snyder made the

call to pull him out of the starting lineup and just kind of reset some things for him.

And I think that he is really, maturely embraced it.

And I think we are starting to see the fruit of that on the court just like tonight.

He did play 31 minutes.

So pretty much a lot of minutes, some good time for him on the court.

But what he did while he was on the court, so important, almost a double, double 19 points

and nine rebounds, those 19 points off six of 12 shooting, three of five from the three

point line, four of six from the free throw line.

And also a steal, a couple of blocks, just two personal files and a plus 17 while he was

on the court.

So Zachary Risa Shea really, really showed up tonight.

He did to nature and I couldn't be happier to not only see that he did it tonight, but

that he has been doing it the last couple of games, something to run home and write home

to tell mom about and all that, no.

But doing some of the little things, some of the things that I've always loved and appreciated

about Muhammad Gay, because he was always open and willing to do and some of the little

things.

And I think that sometimes with Zachary Risa Shea, when he's not having one of these

offensively exploding, scoring nights, sometimes you don't hear from him very much.

He doesn't really impact the game very much in other ways, but he's been doing that a

little bit more consistently ever since that they've gone on this run.

I think the main thing for him is just to really focus on improving, not worried about

improving how much.

Sometimes we have to kind of temper our expectations about how fast a guy improves.

Me, myself included, by the way, but just to get him involved early and often, as you

can tell, that they were really focused on doing not just today, not just recently, but

in games this season, and where it wasn't really working out for him, getting some of those

shots up and things like that at the beginning of throughout the season, when he was a starter,

moving him on to a different role, we could see some different.

We had to do the same thing with DeAndre Hunter, move him down to the bench, see if we

could find something a little bit different, see if that'll kind of like or spark the fire

up under him.

We know he need to build his body.

We know that he needs to build his confidence, but it's just about doing some of the little

things game by game, and I think that's in large part the most important, not even about

the 19 points and this and that, but just the fact that he looks like he's just out there

to have fun, which is rule of thumb number one, and just to be active, maybe put yourself

in position to where you are challenging the two new guys, Kaminga and Kispert a little

bit more that they're going to come in here and take over a spot, or make me feel like

that you've kind of taken losing your starting spot a little bit more personal.

Yeah, yeah, I like that thought because maybe for him, the pressure of being the number

one overall pick, it started to wear on him, especially because he wasn't looking like,

say, a Victor Wimmyama was looking like all world and you think, okay, everybody's on

the hype train about all the guys from France and how they're going to ball out and you

kind of come and you have a spark, but then not so much, right?

And then it's up and down, up and down from there, spilling over into this season.

So yeah, sometimes you just need an opportunity to reset, sometimes you just need a chance

to just kind of find your own identity, especially Dishon with a team that the entirety of

the time he's been here has been looking for its own identity.

So yeah, I think that's what we're seeing from him is just Quinn Snyder giving him the

space to kind of evolve within the time frame that he can evolve in and the time frame

he has to evolve in.

I suspect the same thing for Jonathan, Jonathan Kaminga, not that he was a number one pick

per se, but maybe some of the pressures that he felt in Golden State or maybe some of

him rising to the challenge at times and then feeling like he wasn't giving it, getting

his just due, maybe that's why we are seeing a bit of a resurgence from him as well.

He was out three games came back tonight and that a solid game defensively, only played

19 minutes, 0 for shooting during that time frame, but again, I think the most important

thing is when you look down that stat line, that box score and you see nine rebounds to

know that his mindset was, Hey, if my shot isn't falling in my return from a three game

absence, let me still make myself valuable at the other end.

Here's the interesting part, though, Tunisia, I'm looking at some of his numbers.

Sometimes it was a little bit discouraging because while I'll be it still very young,

that jump from your rookie year to your second year, we oftentimes look to see the growth

that you have had.

I feel like it doesn't really always show in him on the floor or does it with his number

sometimes.

Going back to it, he's shooting just about the same percentage from the field that he

was last year, an exact that he was from three last year, have dipped down about 12% from

the free throw line, but even more so is shooting the exact same, or I'm sorry, not shooting,

but having the same amount of assists that he was last year, it sounds as the same that

it was last year, everything is pretty much the same.

So I think sometimes in warranted a little bit, you want to see a little bit of it improvement.

I just think that I would appreciate a little bit more okay games from him.

I don't know.

Yes, solid games.

That's the point.

Great games.

And then turn around and then there's like, we're replaying five on four tonight and

we ended up having four.

I want to see some great area games where it's like, you know what, like the games we've

been seeing lately.

Plenty of it.

There's eight points, ten points here and there, doing little things, getting on the ground

after lose balls, creating second chance points, I'm fine with all that stuff.

I don't need a 33 point night on a prime time game against the mix like we saw last year

every single time.

Just give me some level of consistency and I'm okay with that.

Yeah.

If I can get a solid double double like and the realm of 12 points, 10 rebounds or every

now and again, maybe 14, 10, that's fine.

I'd rather see that every game night and night out than like you said, one game where he's

playing lights out, looking like he's all world and then the next game, we're wondering

anybody sees that.

Recession.

Yeah.

So I think the consistency is maybe a part of what Quinn Snyder is trying to help him

to establish as well, understanding how do you play this game at a consistently solid

or dare I say maybe later high level.

So well, yeah, Robert, I mean, maybe some live up pepper wings might help him.

Let it help anybody.

I'm 150.

I can go for some wings.

Right, right, save, save.

Well, you know what?

I'm not really a wings fan, but I do like, I do like lemon pepper anything.

So there's that.

The Hawk's Postcast is the number one place to hang out after every game and it's part

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So remember to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and for more on the Hawks, head

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We'll see you next time.