Point Blank – January 12
What a “Bettor Better Know’ – Weekend Starting Five
Item: The Hawks, re-visited (did Mike Budenholzer already have a Master’s Degree?)
There has not been a worse take on this page in any sport than a breakdown of the Hawks a month ago, noting that a soft opening schedule had paved the way for much of their early success, and that once the quality of opposition increased, the limitations of the personnel would become more visible. That has not happened at all, with Atlanta stepping up to the challenges with aplomb. And in conducting a proper re-examination it sheds some pretty clear light on what the Hawks are doing right, and why it matters in the context of the NBA’s modern era. The best way to envision them is to close your eyes for a moment, adjust your visions of the uniforms, and pretend that you are instead watching the Spurs. Then it makes sense.
Atlanta is playing brilliant offensive basketball. There is plenty of motion by both the players and the ball, which creates opportunities against defenses that lack experience and chemistry. It comes from the playbook of Mike Budenholzer, who has shown that he has graduated with high honors from one of the more significant coaching internships in professional sports history. Budenholzer got his first NBA job as Greg Popovich’s video coordinator in 1994-95, before being named a full assistant in 1996-97, where he remained until taking the Atlanta opportunity. Along the way he earned four championship rings, not just learning how to make the passing game of Pops go, but also his penchant for breaking down the particular weaknesses of opponents to tweak those schemes for any given game. He learned from a master, and has learned well.
It was not easy for either the players or the betting markets to buy in LY – in going 38-44 through Budenholzer’s first campaign, it was the first losing record for the Hawks in five seasons. There were the usual rumblings about a HC sitting in that seat for the first time, but the pieces did begin to come together down the stretch, with a closing 6-2 SU and ATS run to get the #8 playoff seed, before taking a 3-2 advantage over the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs, in a series they lost in seven.
Keeping that cast together is now making a major difference in developing a chemistry that has them at #6 in the league offensively and #5 defensively, with Golden State the only other team in the top six on both charts. And as the wins mount it becomes even easier for all of those veterans to buy in to the process. In an era of both rapid roster movement via free agency, and also far too many players entering the league without a lot of college experience, it really can be as much about the quality of basketball that you play, as the quality of players that you have. The Spurs do not get a full appreciation for that because they have some Hall of Famers in the rotation. The Hawks do not, which makes the admiration for Budenholzer go to a very high level.
The latest evidence was a shockingly easy 120-89 Sunday rout of a good Washington team that was 25-11 entering the game. No Hawk scored 20 points, but eight reached double figures, and they were credited with 33 assists, 11 different players having at least one. It led one of the best NBA analysts out there to Tweet “Hawks offense has the Wiz on skates every possession, they have no idea where to go or who to cover.” And if you think the chemistry is good now, imagine the tinkering that can be done with that seven-game home stand that begins next Monday, a span that allows plenty of opportunity for practice time.
Item: Did the Knicks just play the worst Quarter in NBA history?
At the opposite end of the basketball chemistry standpoint is the current lab experiment going on in New York, and in order to keep the restless natives at bay, Phil Jackson had plenty to say on Saturday. The Knicks had a rare afternoon game at Madison Square Garden, before taking a few days off as a prelude to playing the Bucks in London. So it was time for Jackson’s “state of the union” address, one in which he not only admitted fault, but tried to truly define what was going on -
“This is a mea culpa. I take responsibility for it, and the fans, I want them to leave Derek alone in this regard. He’s doing the best job possible. It’s not his fault. . . . I think I spoke to that about a month ago when I said I was concerned about a loser’s mentality that might be forming with this team and it certainly is embedded right now. . . . Obviously I didn’t do the right thing in picking the group of guys that were here. . . . No one should be surprised at what we do from here on out.”
But take careful note that this was said BEFORE the Knicks took the court against a 14-24 Bobcat squad that was without starters Al Jefferson and Lance Stephenson. New York was thumped by a ridiculous 110-82 count, and yet for as bad as that score will appear in data-bases, it could have been much, much worse. A genuine case can be made that the 41-13 drubbing the Knicks suffered in the second quarter could have been the single worst frame any NBA team has ever played. Which makes one shudder to think of what Jackson might have said had his speech been afterwards.
Some of this is the fact that the team is bereft of talent, and literally has no building blocks for Fisher to work with. This current group can not get much better. But in terms of making a power rating that can hold up with consistency, go back to the last of Jackson’s comments above – when those that are on the roster are aware that they have no job security, it also gets much more difficult for them to buy in. That is what Saturday’s second quarter was all about, one of those rare cases in which a professional team literally quits in the course of a game. That Charlotte team should not be capable of either scoring 41, or allowing 13, in a single quarter, yet accomplished both.
Now the issue will be making handicapping sense of this going forward. Since jettisoning J. R. Smith, and making it clear that they were acquiring players with contracts that would make them easy to dump, the Knicks have fallen a collective 35.5 points short of the market expectations over four games (and that is with the very kind final result vs. Charlotte, which led by as many as 45). It will be a challenge to get them right, which also means the difficulty of assigning scales of awards to the teams that play them as well. When players know that working hard means winning instead of losing, they work hard. When they know that working hard means the difference between losing by 15 or losing by 10, they don’t.
Item: Even talented freshmen have to learn toughness
Those NBA-bound yearlings for Duke and Kentucky got their first tastes of conference road play this past week, and the results were far from the market expectations. Duke fell 28 points short of the projections in only managing a 1-1 split at Wake Forest and N. C. State, getting out-scored by four points outright over those 80 floor minutes, while Kentucky never had any kind of breathing room in that 70-64 double-overtime escape at Texas A&M, after closing at -14.5. And there was a common theme visible each time – young players with tremendous athleticism and basketball skills were challenged with the “toughness” aspect of taking on guys with lesser abilities, but a little older and more than willing to get after them. Neither team handled the settings well.
For Kentucky it was not jut the road outing on Saturday, but also having to extend into overtime to escape past Mississippi in Rupp Arena earlier in the week. And one shudders to think of how different those results would have been had not Stefan Moody had to leave the game late for Ole Miss with cramps (noted in last Wednesday’s column), or the fact that A&M played the entire way without leading scorer Jalen Jones. The Wildcats could have easily opened SEC play 0-2, against a pair of teams that will not be dancing in March. Their issue has been discussed here several times already – the injury to Alex Poythress that completely altered the “Platoon” system was far more significant than many will be able to understand. But there is also the fact that they are such a target that SEC opponents are relishing the opportunity to get after them. Calipari’s post-game sentiment tells that tale – “It’s not like we’re not playing. What’s happened is other teams are playing out of their minds.”
For Duke the level of intensity from the opposition was similar this week, but the Blue Devils also bring an issue that is clear to see – while this group can run, jump and do everything necessary with the ball in hand, they are not going to bruise anyone around the basket. Wake Forest and N. C. State were able to attack aggressively on offense, making 53.3 percent of their two-point attempts, while dishing out 34 assists (vs. only 21 turnovers). Some of that is the physical chemistry of this group, but also the fact that they are so young means that there is a learning curve in terms of toughness. That is not lost on Mike Krzyzewski -
“You learn through experience how tough you need to be. You may think you’re playing tough until you’re placed in another situation that requires a whole 'nother level. . . . Were we as tough as we needed to be? No. But does that mean we’re soft? No. We need to learn to play at that level.”
There are going to be nights on which Duke simply overwhelms the opposition with shot-making and execution, like the brilliant 30-46 shooting at Wisconsin, the best offensive game we will see a team play this season. Those highlight reels and box scores will not show the weakness that is there, and can make it appear that there may not even be one. But it is a genuine issue that will take time for this group to work through, if indeed they can before Jahlil Okafor departs for the NBA. But making it a little easier for Coach K is that one of the opponents that would ordinarily have been well-set to challenge his team with physical play is not anywhere near their past reputation this time around…
Item: Clemson out-rebounded Pittsburgh 39-22
Yes, the Tigers winning outright 71-62 as +8 over the Panthers certainly calls for a double-take. An offense that was held to 50 and 52 in opening 0-2 in ACC play shot 47.1 percent, and had nearly twice as many assists (15) as turnovers (8). That is something one would certainly not have expected to see against a Jamie Dixon defense at the Peterson Center. But it was the work on the boards that was a true shocker – there were 61 available caroms in the game, and 39 ended up with Clemson, despite the Tigers not being an overly imposing team on the glass. It looks like that for this season, Pitt isn’t Pitt, and it also means time to look back to that ending at Boston College last week to fully grasp the current realities.
The Panthers could easily be 0-3 in ACC play. In addition to being handled at home vs. Clemson they were whipped 68-50 at N. C. State. But while a 61-60 overtime win at BC would not turn heads given the closing line of Pittsburgh -2.5, proper examination shows how precarious the Panther setting really is. The Eagles actually led that one 53-43 with 3:00 remaining, but in a stunning late sequence they did not score again, with three turnovers directly leading to Panther baskets in a 10-0 run that tied the game. Some of that was indeed good Pittsburgh defense, but a lot was also the lack of maturity for a young Boston College team to be strong with the ball to close it out. Otherwise it would have been an 0-3 conference tag for Dixon’s team, despite all of those games coming against the ACC’s lower-tier.
So what has gone wrong? It is the culmination of something that has been happening for several years – the recruiting has fallen off considerably. Despite almost annually making the NCAA tournament, the program has been doing it without great players, and there is no better evidence of that than the fact that Steven Adams is the only former Panther currently in an NBA rotation. And Adams spent all of one season walking the corridors in the Cathedral of Learning (he likely never got all that acquainted). But at least in the past there were players that might have lacked in terms of upside, but still brought that toughness on defense and on the boards. In many games they simply out-worked the other side. Against Clemson neither of those attributes were visible, and the post-game sentiment from Cameron Wright is something one would almost never expect to hear from a program with this particular pedigree - “They came in here and kicked our tail on the glass. It's plain and simple. They wanted it more.” That sends off a warning flare before Pitt steps up against the ACC elite.
Item: What happened to Temple, when the Owls lost their Will
To say that Will Cummings was the “glue” guy at Temple prior to Saturday would not have come across as any kind of exaggeration – he leads the Owls in assists, is second in scoring and rebounding, and the team captain has averaged more minutes per game (34.8) than any player in the American Athletic Conference. But that still might not have prepared anyone for just how big his impact turned out to be against Tulsa on Saturday, the kind of game result that needs to be broken down carefully as you adjust your power ratings.
Temple entered that game at 12-4 overall and unbeaten at home, having spanked Kansas by 25 and owning a league win at Connecticut, which made the Owls appear to be solidly in the NCAA tourney hunt. That form was continuing against the Golden Hurricanes, with a double-figure lead built out early in the second half, until Cummings was injured on what was ruled a flagrant foul on a fast break. He left the game with Temple ahead 35-24. The final score was Tulsa 63-56. It was a stunning 39-21 closing salvo.
The Owls lost direction on offense, which should not come as a surprise, since Cummings has more than twice as many assists as any other player. And of course there is the historic 0-13 from 3-point range from Jesse Morgan (1-17 overall), who entered the game shooting a terrific 40.3 percent from beyond the arc. But what is tougher to see from the box score was the defensive impact – Tulsa key cog Shaquille Harrison scored 19 of his 24 points after Cummings left.
The lessons here are two-fold: First is obviously the importance that Cummings has on this team, should he have to miss any time going forward. Second is that you might not want to give Tulsa as much credit as that final score would call for.