The Hawks have one win under their belt in this season’s NBA Cup; on Friday, they look to secure another.
They will face the Wizards for the third time in three weeks, but this go-around has even more on the line since this game is a part of the NBA Cup. So, along with defeating the Wizards, the Hawks will look to run up the score as a way to ensure they come out on top in tiebreaker situations.
“Take every basket, every basket that’s given to us,” Hawks forward Jalen Johnson said. “We play till the buzzer. Yeah, to the fourth quarter says all zeros on the clock. We’re going to be trying to score.”
The Hawks lost both of their previous two meetings to the Wizards earlier this month, allowing them to shoot 45.1% on 3-point shots, with a true shooting percentage of 63.3% across the two matchups. They led the Wizards by as much as 13 points in the first contest and lost to them by 13 points in the second.
So, when they play them at 7:30 p.m. Friday at State Farm Arena, the Hawks will look to correct the mistakes — allowing uncontested 3′s and not getting back — that cost them those games.
“I think it’s just moving in unison, being together, connected defensively,” Johnson said when asked about limiting the Wizards’ 3-point shots. ”A lot of times that stuff is random. So, all the rotations and all that can depend on whether we want to keep a match-up or whether we’re playing a certain coverage. So I think it’s all just situational.”
The Hawks did not have several key rotational players in both games against the Wizards. Bogdan Bogdanovic and De’Andre Hunter have missed significant time since the season opener, while Kobe Bufkin has yet to make his debut. The Hawks lost wing Vit Krejci in the second half of the first game against the Wizards, while Dyson Daniels, who has picked up the nickname “The Great Barrier Thief” over the past two days, missed the second.
They could get some relief with Daniels back in the rotation since Nov. 3 and Hunter receiving medical clearance from the team’s training staff. Hawks coach Quin Snyder said that Hunter participated in practice Thursday. Snyder also said that guard Trae Young (right Achilles tendinitis), who missed Tuesday’s win over the Celtics, participated in practice.
With Daniels back in the fold and contributing significantly on the defensive end, as well as the potential return of Hunter, the Hawks have shored some of the early-season porous defense on the perimeter.
Daniels has injected plenty of life into the Hawks’ defense, especially over his past four games. The third-year guard has averaged 6.3 steals over the past three games, including a career-high seven steals in the team’s loss to the Pistons on Friday.
But Daniels continues to show relentless energy, taking few possessions off.
“I think, Washington is a very underrated team,” Daniels said. “They play hard. They play fast. We got a lot of guys that can defend and switch. So, they’re a challenging team, and we know coming to this game, we need to win this one that goes the first two times. So, it’s just gonna be about playing our style, playing fast, playing physical, doing the things we know how to do, and falling into what they want to do.”
The Hawks will look to keep the Wizards off the 3-point line and limit the number of shooters on a team with plenty of them.
“When they have a lot of shooters like that, just about run them off the line, sending them into the paint, letting the big boys do their work down there,” Daniels said.
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