Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce showed his team video evidence of late-game issues that have led to four narrow defeats during their current nine-game losing streak.
Against the Cavaliers earlier this week, the Hawks ran the same play four times – one resulted in a Kevin Huerter 3-pointer, the next in a John Collins basket on a switch and then … well, let’s just have Pierce sum it up.
“Great play, great play, slop, slop,’ he said in summing up what resulted in a three-point road loss.
Friday night’s 112-86 blowout loss to the Bucks aside, the Hawks have been in close games during the losing streak only to falter late. They currently stand at 6-26, the worst record in the NBA. That’s bad but made worse by the fact that they have let several games slip away in the fourth quarter.
Consider:
*Against the Lakers on Dec. 15, the Hawks trailed by four going into fourth quarter. They cut the deficit to two and had a 3-point attempt with 9.7 seconds left that could have tied the score. They lost 101-96.
*Against the Jazz on Dec. 19, the Hawks led 96-95 with six minutes left. They lost 111-106.
*Against the Nets on Dec. 21, the Hawks held a 13-point lead going into the fourth quarter. They didn’t score until 6:36 remained in the period, allowing the Nets a 14-0 run. They lost 122-118.
“This has happened a couple times to us,” Huerter said after the game. “Get up, get leads and figure out a way to lose at the end of the game. It’s frustrating, and it’s a game we know we should have won.”
*Against the Cavaliers on Monday, the Hawks were in a tie game, 94-94, entering the fourth quarter. They went 5:27 without a field goal and found themselves on the short end of a 17-5 Cavaliers run. They lost 121-118.
“It’s not what you run, it’s how you run it,” Pierce said Friday. “Being organized is important. Setting screens and waiting for screens is important. And then making the right reads. Fourth-quarter offense is about that execution. Within the execution, what are the right reads. And then, are we making the simple plays and are we making the extra pass? We have a lot of those opportunities.”
There have been blowout losses in the current skid, including a 34-point loss to the Bulls, the Hawks’ opponent Saturday night, the third time this season they have play Chicago on the second of back-to-back games. That’s some scheduling quirk.
Pierce would not say that youth is to blame for the late-game execution issues. The team played situational games in practice Thursday. The goal was to try to focus on the task at hand and not get flustered when things go wrong. Pierce lamented some missed shots against the Nets and then said. “Then it was just, ‘Oh my goodness, what is going on? How do we create a better look?’”
Pierce alluded to a need for greater leadership late in games. He said he shared with his staff a moment he noticed while watching the Lakers-Clippers game on Christmas day. The Clippers’ Patrick Beverly got a technical foul after making a layup and then got an earful from Lou Williams in a 111-106 win.
“(Williams told him) everything that he needed to hear because he wanted him to keep his focus on the game and not sacrificing that point that he gave up for that tech,” Pierce said. “That’s leadership. That’s being organized. That’s being able to understand the moment and what you need in that moment.
“It’s the same thing you need defensively and offensively. To execute, sometimes its hey slow down, get us organized, get to the right spot and being able to take it from that point and then running your stuff and running it the way you want to run it and … not just coming down and running into something.”
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