Previewing the Washington Wizards and the Atlanta Hawks

Apr 12, 2015; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Wizards forward Otto Porter Jr. (22) dribbles the ball as Atlanta Hawks forward Austin Daye (3) defends in the fourth quarter at Verizon Center. The Wizards won 108-99. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Hawks rating without Sefolosha: +2.76

Wizards rating with Beal: 2.58

There’s a general question that arises during every NBA post-season. With the Hawks, it’s are they the team whose entire starting lineup was named eastern conference “player” of the month, or are they the team that stumbled in spring and dropped a couple games to the Nets? And are the Wizards the team that destroyed the Raptors in a sweep delivering on the promise of John Wall and company, or are they the 44 win team with a midrange friendly lame-duck offense that benefited from a weak conference? NBA analysts try to make this into an either-or question, but this is a false dilemma. The truth, as in most cases, is somewhere in between.

Atlanta is not the typical 60 win team, and without Sefolosha and some injury issues in their frontcourt they’re not at full strength. But given the information we have, this is still a pretty good team and they don’t need to be dominant in such a weak conference. The Wizards have not turned into the Warriors of the east, but they may not need to because with some timely health and even a slightly improved offense they have enough firepower to match the Hawks and compete.

I would caution against thinking this Washington team is truly different until we get a couple more games against a better opponent. Teams had a tendency to crash to the mean hard, and it’s possible Porter’s shooting percentages go down and the Wizards revert to their previous tendencies against a good defense. I’m not entirely convinced Randy Wittman was playing some elaborate long con, and it’ll be interesting to see how Washington’s small-ball fares against a team that can play five-out basketball (super-charged spacing) with a real power forward in Paul Millsap. There are few teams in basketball history like the Hawks due to their balance and outside shooting. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to label them singular or truly unique. I wonder how an elite point guard, like Chris Paul or Westbrook, would perform with that kind of shooting and unselfishness, and if Jeff Teague’s value is partly a mirage.

John Wall, in fact, would be in heaven in charge of the Atlanta squad, and although his shaky jump shot wouldn’t mesh well with the system his outstanding passing and blinding speed would be a boon. This is the potential with the Wizards because they do have great shooters, like Beal, and there’s enough of a defense with Gortat in the middle, a few stretches of Nene, and other pieces that they could be a threat to any of the (weakened) eastern conference teams. As you can see in the below table, which shows the change in proportion of shots by zone, the Wizards drastically reduced their midrange shots for more three-pointers in the playoffs, and this could be a harbinger of more playoff success.

(The table shows the change in the percentage of shots from each zone via basketball-reference from the regular season to the playoffs. For example, 20.3% of Washington’s field goals were three-pointers, but that increased to 29.6 in the post-season.)

The Hawks are probably the better team, and luckily they have homecourt advantage. But this could be a closer series than one would think given each team’s win total in the regular season.

Odds: Hawks 66.9%.

(Team ratings are per 100 possessions. The ratings were calculated with ridge regression for better estimates and with one key player in/out of the game. (Playing fewer than 10 minutes counted as being out.) This means every playoff team had two variables. These numbers are used in conjunction with ratings derived from long-term RPM, as seen on fivethirtyeight.com, to calculate the odds.)