Though the Atlanta Hawks saw their four-game winning streak snapped on Friday in a home loss to the L.A. Clippers, the vibes were good for the team in advance of a matchup with the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday evening. In fact, the Hawks entered the day with a prime opportunity to take a 2.5-game lead over the Orlando Magic for the Southeast Division lead and, by proxy, the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference. Orlando faced a difficult matchup against the scalding-hot Cleveland Cavaliers, while Atlanta faced a shorthanded Nets team on the second night of a back-to-back.
But, of course, that is why they play the games.
The Magic snapped Cleveland's 16-game winning streak on Sunday afternoon and, hours later, the Hawks let a second-half lead slip away in a rather grim loss at Barclays Center. After an early stumble, the Hawks seemingly righted the ship, leading by as many as 10 points in the second half and by eight points with less than 15 minutes remaining. From there, nothing went right for Atlanta, as the Hawks yielded a 31-12 extended run that gave the Nets a lead they would never relinquish on the way to a final score of 122-114.
On the whole, Atlanta's offense was solid, producing at a league-average rate over four quarters and operating with strong efficiency until the closing period. However, the Hawks struggled mightily at times on defense, whicih spelled doom in this particular spot.
"Our defense was the issue," said Hawks head coach Quin Snyder after the loss. "We just didn't get stops on possessions we needed to."
The Hawks have to tighten up on defense before the playoffs start
Without knowing the context, it would have been difficult to decipher that the Hawks were facing a Nets team that ranks in the bottom five of the NBA in offensive efficiency and 3-point accuracy. Brooklyn generated 1.22 points per possession, including a whopping 1.37 points per possession in the second half, and the Nets connected on nearly half of their 3-point attempts.
Some of that perimeter shooting success can simply be attributed to red-hot shooting for Brooklyn, but Atlanta also broke down far too often, headlined by a late possession in the fourth quarter in which the Hawks left Brooklyn's best offensive weapon, Cam Johnson, open for a 3-pointer that extended the deficit from three points to six points.
Atlanta's overall defense was simply not good enough but, in drilling down, much of the Hawks' struggles can be traced to bench-heavy units. The Hawks soundly won the minutes with players like Dyson Daniels and Onyeka Okongwu on the floor in the game, and the drop-off from Okongwu to 21-year-old backup big man Dom Barlow was glaring in this matchup.
In fact, the Hawks allowed only 1.07 points per possession in 32 minutes with Okongwu anchoring the defense, while that number ballooned to an unsightly 1.57 points per possession in 16 minutes with Barlow. To be fair, Barlow is essentially Atlanta's fourth-string center and a developmental project for the Hawks, but with both Clint Capela (family reasons) and Larry Nance Jr. (right medial femoral condyle fracture) unavailable, the backup center minutes were rather hideous.
Defense was the primary issue for the Hawks, as outlined above by Snyder and some grim numbers, but the Hawks also went cold at the worst possible time offensively. After producing at a near-elite level on the offensive end over the first three quarters, Atlanta scored less than a point per possession with 45 percent true shooting in the fourth quarter. That led to only 22 points, with the Hawks missing eight of nine three-point attempts, including their final five offerings from beyond the arc. Under different circumstances, that dry spell could have been navigated, but that hiccup, in tandem with poor defense, proved to be a dire combination.
In taking a few steps back, the Hawks simply lost a game as a modest road favorite on a Sunday in March. However, Atlanta didn't play well enough to take real solace in the realities of this game being "1 of 82," and the context of the game, ranging from Brooklyn's place in the East pecking order to the reality that the Nets were on short rest and playing without key players, makes things even worse.
Fortunately, the Hawks maintain a narrow lead in the division and will face Miami and Orlando three more times this season. As such, Atlanta is in control of its destiny, but if the Hawks land in a tie or a one-game deficit when the regular season ends in mid-April, this loss will be one to remember.