The Hawks punched their ticket to the playoffs. They’ll head to Boston to face the Celtics in the first round of the postseason, and they know they have a tough task ahead of them.
The Celtics hold the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference and swept the Hawks in all three of their meetings during the regular season. On top of that, the Celtics will look to make their return to the NBA Finals and build on what they began the year before.
So, the Hawks will look to get the series off on the right foot Saturday in Game 1. Here are three keys to the series.
Defending long-range shots
The Celtics have a myriad of players who can knock down 3-point shots. That’s how the Celtics burned the Hawks in each of their three games in the regular season.
The Hawks have given up 20 or more 3-pointers four times this season, and three of those occasions were to the Celtics. They allowed a season-high 25 3-pointers to the Celtics in their regular-season finale, when both teams rested their regular starters and rotational players.
Though defending the 3 has become more and more difficult, the Hawks have put up little resistance to the Celtics’ firepower from outside. The Celtics are the sixth-most efficient team beyond the arc and have eight players shooting 35% or better on at least three attempts per game.
“It’s a big part of who they are,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “And I’m not, I’m stating the obvious, I think they’ve done it throughout the course of the season. So, anytime that’s part of the team’s identity, it makes it even more difficult.”
Help from the bench
Since the Celtics have plenty of depth, the Hawks will need their “Bench Mob” to come through. The Hawks have the second-best bench in the NBA in points per game since the All-Star break, behind the Pacers. By the end of the regular season, the Hawks had the most efficient scoring bench in the league, with the team making 50.4% of their field goals.
On average, the Hawks’ second unit puts up 42.2 points per game, thanks to the strong performances of Bogdan Bogdanovic, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu.
The four players often inject energy on both ends of the floor and often have been the key to the Hawks getting separation as of late.
In Tuesday’s play-in game against the Heat, the Hawks bench helped to get the team out to a 24-point lead in the final minutes of the second quarter. So, with Bogdanovic’s and Bey’s ability to space the floor, the Hawks will have some options to open things up for scoring.
Keep the ball moving
With the Hawks having more consistency from their second unit, as well as the solid shooting from John Collins as of late, they’ll have to move the ball. Early in their matchup against the Heat on Tuesday, the Hawks had 17 assists through the first quarter-and-a-half of the game.
The Hawks average 25.8 assists to 46 field goals made since the All-Star break, and they are at their best when they get everyone involved. That matters particularly when the Hawks can get the players in the front court touches to get them into a rhythm early in the game.
So, the Hawks will have to remain focused to ensure that they have the right spacing. It’s something that Snyder has emphasized since he took over the Hawks after the All-Star break, and it has helped the team become one of the top five offenses in the league.
“When the floor is not balanced, it’s hard to get into creases in the gaps, and the spacing can be missed sometimes,” Young said. “And I think that was a big emphasis, like you said for (Snyder) is making sure our spacing is right. A lot of it making sure everybody’s in the right spots, and sometimes whenever you don’t know where to go and you’re kind of having to think on the fly for yourself, it’s sometimes tough, especially for a young team.”
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