After a disappointing loss to the Spurs on Wednesday, the Atlanta Hawks are back on the road tonight as they face the New Orlenas Pelicans. New Orleans is on the second night of a back-to-back, losing in the final minutes last night to the Dallas Mavericks and the Pelicans have lost eight games straight overall as their record stands at 2-14.
It has been discussed plenty, but the Hawks stand to benefit from the Pelicans losing all of these games and struggling in the early part of the season. New Orleans traded the Hawks their unprotected 1st round pick in next year’s draft, but the reason the Pelicans made that trade was to get Derik Queen and he is starting to show why they did. Queen is playing really well and the Pelicans are running everything through him on offense.
The game is nearing its start and both teams just announced their starting lineups:
Hawks
G- Nickeil Alexander-Walker
G- Dyson Daniels
F- Zaccharie Risacher
F- Jalen Johnson
C- Kristaps Porzingis
Pelicans
G- Jeremiah Fears
G- Trey Murphy III
F- Micah Peavy
F- Saddiq Bey
C- Derik Queen
Looking closer at the Hawks
Our own Rohan Raman previewed the game this morning and took a look at what the advanced numbers say about the Hawks:
“The Hawks’ offense wasn’t the reason for their loss against the Spurs and their excellent production has pushed them up the rankings in many offensive metrics of success. They’re 17th in points, 7th in FG%, 9th in 3P%, 18th in FT%, 25th in rebounds (28th in OREB), 2nd in assists and 17th in turnovers per game. They’re 16th in offensive rating on the year, but these games are still an excellent supporting argument in having the offense run through multiple players rather than solely Trae Young.
Atlanta’s defense is slowly starting to fall back towards the middle of the league after a strong start. On a per-game basis, Atlanta ranks 15th in points allowed, 12th in FG% allowed, 7th in 3P% allowed, 23rd in rebounds allowed, 5th in steals and 9th in blocks. They’re 15th in defensive rating on the year, which is a dissapointing fall from their previous top-10 mark.
Despite having a lot of intriguing talent and exciting rookies, the Pelicans aren’t a very good offense. They’re 30th in points, 27th in FG%, 24th in 3P%, 24th in FT%, 26th in rebounds (8th in OREB), 30th in assists and 22nd in turnovers per game. They’ve gotten some good performances from Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears, but the larger reality of the season suggests that this team should not be able to crack Atlanta’s defense.
New Orleans also isn’t a good defense team. They’re 24th in points allowed, 28th in FG% allowed, 18th in 3P% allowed, 19th in rebounds allowed, 7th in steals and 30th in blocks. The Hawks have played two fairly tough defenses and they should be able to get some reprieve tonight against a defense that has some great players, but a ton of targets as well.”
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