How the Atlanta Hawks are Helping Redefine the NBA's Most Valuable Skill
In a league thought to be in the midst of a shooting-revolution, the Hawks have their sights set on a different set of tools.
Last night, as I laid in bed scanning NBA Twitter–like every other dependent NBA fan fighting their post-Summer League withdrawal–I came across an interesting tweet by users @nbacircles and @Lucas_Kaplan:
It’s a fairly lengthy post, but one that is extremely valuable. What @nbacircles concludes through the logic of on-ball defense–and what Kaplan then pointed out–is that in a league that has been defined by a kind of shooting-revolution, it’s now ball-handling, or more broadly: self creation, that is the most important tool for an NBA player.
I really recommend reading the entirety of @nbacircles’ explanation, but to briefly summarize: the NBA has–offensively–become a game of matchups and matchup advantages. This is particularly true in the playoffs, where it’s common to see teams run different actions that try to force their best player onto the other team’s weakest defender (think: Luka Doncic putting Patrick Beverly in timeout over and over in their first-round matchup).
The retort to this kind of offensive action is a defense that manages to effectively “hide” these weaker on-ball defenders. It’s difficult to do but still possible: a combination of early-switching and scramble help-defense at the second level can allow teams to siphon their weaker defenders back towards the offensive players with little ability to self-create.
It’s a strategy that has proved be successful at the NBA level, but one that exposes a conclusion that I think should be obvious: the more players with self-creation potential available on the court, the easier it is to expose these weaker defenders. This natural conclusion lends itself to another: if self-creation is the easiest way to expose weak on-ball defense, then it is self-creation that has become the league’s most valuable skill.
With that in mind, there’s one team that really seems to be invested in this idea: the Atlanta Hawks. Atlanta, with the exception of only Clint Capela, has a depth chart that exclusively fields self-creating players. Obviously, that field contains a spectrum of creators; John Collins is not creating the same shot Trae Young is, but every player who sees extended minutes on the Hawks demands some kind of legitimate defensive attention.
This theory of self-creation may be interesting and valuable, but is effectively meaningless if Nate McMillan isn’t employing an offense that specifically takes advantage of this surplus.
Luckily for both the Hawks and our rapidly developing theory, McMillan has indeed created a five-out offense that functions with the specific goal of exposing the other team’s weakest defender.
It’s a juggernaut of off-ball screens and dribble-penetration opportunities that forces the defense to pick their poison and–as the Knicks so brutally found out–usually results in a good shot for Young and the Hawks.
Here’s a super simple example of this from Atlanta’s first round series against New York; Solomon Hill and Danilo Gallinari begin with a stagger for Kevin Huerter before eventually popping out to the three-point line. The attention that Gallinari and Huerter–and, to a lesser extent, Hill–generate as creators from the perimeter pushes the help-defense out of position. With no help, Young is free to drive to the paint and kick, setting the stage for Atlanta’s creators to shine:
Huerter beats his man to the rim–deflation.
Another kick out and swing allows Gallinari to then beat his man–more deflation.
Suddenly, Huerter is free to relocate to the corner and the defense has no idea where he’s gone.
Swish:
The action is actually really simple; what was really only two screens left the New York defense helpless and lost. The funniest part of this clip is Julius Randle who, by the time Heurter has the ball in the corner, looks like a kid stepping up to the register before his mom had came back with those extra groceries.
Despite its simplicity, the action is so effective because of the gravity that every single player demands. If all five defenders need to be stretched out to the three-point line and be responsible for dribble penetration, then a mistake is inevitable–either a particular defender is going to fold or the complete defensive scheme is going to collapse.
In the above clip it was the latter. New York’s entire defense caved and saw RJ Barrett defending Huerter’s initial drive and Gallinari’s secondary drive and Huerter’s eventual jumpshot. It’s an impossible scenario for Barrett and one that saw him fail to stop any of the three attacks.
Thus, Atlanta’s constant offensive unraveling make it impossible to “hide” subpar perimeter defenders.
As I previously mentioned, one of the ways teams go about doing this “hiding” is through scrambling at the second level. A scramble usually comes after the initial defender has been beat and help has to sink in to cover this deficit. Teams on the backside scramble in a sort-of X motion (also known as X-ing out) and plug potential drives from a kick-out. It’s an effective strategy when the guys getting those passes are only threats to shoot the ball.
Watch here what happens when Huerter gets dribble penetration against the Knicks and they try scrambling on the backside:
Huerter’s attack forces Toppin to overcommit and as soon as that kick-out comes, the Knicks have to scramble. Burks actually gets to a solid closeout, but Gallinari has options; a pass to Lou Williams exposes one of the Knicks’ worse perimeter defenders in Toppin and with him also out of position, Williams might as well be looking at an orange cone.
McMillan’s ability to operate with four and five-out lineups that have consistent, attacking threats forces the opposition to be stretched so thin defensively. All three of Gallinari, Huerter, and Williams–and even Snell, potentially–could have created out of that scramble situation. What Lou did wasn’t unique, Toppin’s lousy close-out would’ve meant a basket against anyone on that perimeter.
Building further on that offensive production is the team’s ability to use a variety of players as primary ball-handlers on the break. Truth be told, these smaller, more dynamic lineups don’t actually rely all that heavily on the fastbreak (more on that later) but even still, the versatility in handling and hit-ahead creation means that the other team’s transition defense needs to be elite, or else it’s yet another basket.
Bogdanovic’s ability to start the break forces Alec Burks’ to make a decision between guarding him or Young. On the backside, Randle is forced to decide between dropping into help or trailing another scoring threat in Hunter. Neither defender made a necessarily wrong decision, but it was Atlanta’s overwhelming scoring potential that led to Young’s easy basket. It’s the perfect summation of what sparked Atlanta’s playoff run–overwhelming perimeter talent.
Let’s look at another example only because it’s fun to watch the Knicks cower:
God I love it when the Knicks lose.
Make no mistake about it, the Hawks’ have remarkable luxury in this department. The aforementioned trio of Gallinari, Huerter, and Williams represent Atlanta’s sixth, seventh, and ninth scoring leaders respectively. These aren’t the Hawks’ most valuable weapons, but they are a representation of the particular skill their front office has invested in: self-creation. A skill that helped push one of the playoff’s youngest teams to the brink of the NBA Finals.
What surprised me about this Atlanta investment is the manner in which they’ve been able to score. One would think that a lineup that fielded five of these kinds of players would actually find most of its scoring in transition. The truth, however, seems to be the opposite.
Looking at the Hawks’ lineup data from this past season (courtesy of CleaningTheGlass), an interesting reality emerges. Excluding any Atlanta lineups that include Capela and thus limit the team to four self-creating threats, we find that Atlanta’s most often utilized lineup, and their eighth most utilized overall, plays with remarkable half-court efficiency.
That lineup–made up of Young, Snell, Collins, Huerter, and Gallinari–scored at a rate of 134.5 points per 100 possessions–good enough for eighth in the league among groups with a minimum of 150 possessions. Even more striking was Atlanta’s transition scoring–or lack thereof. That same scintillating offense only mustered 16% of their possessions in transition, putting them in the 17th percentile among that same group.
The fact that Atlanta simultaneously fields such a small, dynamic lineup but is still so successful in the half-court is a testament to how well they take advantage of those matchups. The group doesn’t need to outrun you (a play-style that has historically been unsuccessful in the exceedingly slow playoffs). They can punish you with constant dribble drives and a variety of screens that eventually expose your weakest defender and gets them any basket they want–playground bully style.
Whether Atlanta can build on their remarkable play-off run remains a legitimate question. That being said, the group that Travis Schlenk and McMillan have built is no joke. Trae Young might be at the forefront, but this collection of talent is special. It represents the next groundbreaking NBA moment and–unfortunately for the rest of the league–it also means these Hawks are here to stay.