The Whiteboard: The Atlanta Hawks are more than just Trae Young

The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning.

Of the four remaining NBA contenders, the Atlanta Hawks are by far the unlikeliest. Before the playoffs began, 538’s prediction model gave them just a 19 percent chance of making the Conference Finals. They just beat the Philadelphia 76ers in seven games, despite being outscored by 20 points in the series. And they advanced through the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed despite having two of their three leading scorers from the regular season (Trae Young and Bogdan Bogdanovic) combine to shoot 39 percent from the field and 30 percent from beyond the arc in the series.

Young is obviously the headliner on the Atlanta Hawks and despite his poor shooting, he was instrumental in getting the Hawks through — he averaged nearly 10 free throws and 10.9 assists per game, with an assist-to-turnover ratio of more than 3-to-1. But the Hawks’ depth has been just as important to their surprising playoff run.

The Atlanta Hawks and Trae Young are getting help from the entire roster

Kevin Huerter is an obvious place to start after he dropped a season-high 27 points on 18 shots in Game 7. But even in games with less noteworthy stat lines, he’s been key for the Hawks all postseason as a floor-spacer and secondary creator. He’s made 44.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s in the postseason but also been adept at picking his spots to attack closeouts and mismatches off the dribble. He’s shooting 60 percent off drives in the playoffs and on 53 total drives has turned the ball over just once.

John Collins and Danilo Gallinari have shared minutes at the 4 and both have benefited tremendously from the playmaking around them and the defensive attention that Trae Young draws. Combined, they’ve hit 42.4 percent of nearly seven catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts per game. But they’ve also opened things up by exploiting mismatches on their own. They’re each averaging just over one post-up possession per game and scoring over a point per possession in those opportunities, well above the league average. It’s not a high-volume scenario but it’s a release valve, helping take some of the pressure off Young.

Collins and Clint Capela have also been relentless on the offensive glass, helping turn many of those misses by Young and Bogdanovic back into points. The Hawks finished the series plus-10 in second-chance points. Capela’s interior defense was also enormously important. Joel Embiid averaged more than 30 points per game in the series but Capela helped limit him to just 67.4 percent shooting within eight feet of the basket, compared to 77.8 percent against Washington in the first round. His rim deterrence was one of the reasons the 76ers, collectively, shot just 46.9 percent on drives in the series, well down from the regular-season average.

The Hawks’ rotation shrunk as the series went on but they even got solid minutes from the seventh and eighth men in their rotation — veteran guard Lou Williams and rookie big Onyeka Okongwu. Williams got in the paint, drew fouls and helped pressure the ball at the other end. Okongwu played 67 minutes and turned the ball over just once, helping create extra possessions and scoring chances with six offensive rebounds, three steals and six blocks.

In all, Bogdanovic, who is working through injuries, is the only Hawks’ player who has notably underperformed his regular-season averages in the postseason. Meanwhile, several players have increased their production (as measured by Box Plus-Minus) by enormous margins. The Hawks will likely continue to be underdogs against the Milwaukee Bucks but they’re looking less and less like a Cinderella and more like the kind of deep, versatile and talented team that belongs in the NBA’s final foursome.

#OtherContent

Without Chris Paul in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Devin Booker and the young Phoenix Suns did what they’ve been doing all season long.

In this week’s WNBA Power Rankings, the return of Candace Parker has rejuvenated the Chicago Sky making this a three-team title race again.