Giannis rumblings aside, it’s been a quiet week for the Atlanta Hawks (14-11), who are enjoying a few days off as part of an unofficial quarter-of-the-season break thanks to the NBA Cup schedule — and boy have they needed a rest.
As of last Saturday’s win in Washington, the Hawks were tied with three other teams for the most games played this season (25). Through seven weeks, they are tied with Portland and Golden State for the most road games played this season (15). While they haven’t faced the toughest
opponents – they’re 20th in strength of schedule so far – the travel has been relentless, meaning that a few days off to rest and recharge the batteries is just what the doctor ordered.
Last week, I made some charts to help visualize Atlanta’s performance through the first quarter (ish) of the season. This week, I’m back to talk about a few more early season trends.
Here’s an updated look at where the Hawks stack up relative to the rest of the league in offensive and defensive rating (good lord, OKC).
Through seven weeks, Atlanta ranks 15th in offensive rating and 11th in defensive rating. They are 16th in net rating.
Let’s take a look at some intriguing Hawks numbers!
Rebounding Woes
The first trend is an obvious one that’s been quite apparent when watching the Hawks early on this season, but to put it in writing: they have been one of the worst rebounding teams in the league – ranking 24th in offensive rebounding percentage, and 22nd in defensive rebounding percentage thus far.
Rebounding wasn’t a problem area for this team last season, as they ranked 11th in both offensive and defensive rebounding percentage in 2024-25, and while I’m not all that concerned about the drop-off on the offensive glass (more on this below), the team’s struggles on the defensive glass have been a major worry. Atlanta’s inability to consistently close out defensive possessions with a rebound has been one of the biggest factors dragging their 11th ranked defense closer to the league average. The Hawks are 22nd in second chance points allowed this season (16.0 per game), giving up 2.3 more points per game off second-chance opportunities than they were last season (12th, 13.7).
Head coach Quin Snyder spoke about the team’s defensive rebounding issues prior to the Nuggets game, saying that they understand that the possession battle is ‘incredibly important’.
“We just have to keep grinding.” said Snyder, “There’s times where we’re not 7’2”, 6’11”, 6’8” across the front line. Even when we are big, the question there is competing physically. If you’re giving up height, or you’re giving up weight, we have to rebound as a ‘pack’ and we have to get it done together. That means everybody’s got a job to do. But when you miss an assignment, the quarterback gets sacked.”
Snyder also noted that they are trying to study officiating tendencies to try and gain an edge on the glass, saying:
“The defensive glass gets called a lot of different ways in various games, and it’s something to me that we’re trying to study and understand what we can do. You can’t face guard a guy like an offensive lineman, but what can you do to be effective in those situations? We’re studying it a lot and trying to figure out how to get better. We’ll just keep doing that.”
As observers, we’ll get a chance to see if the team has made any breakthroughs in this area against Detroit (second in the league in offensive rebounding percentage) tomorrow night.
One note on the offensive rebounding before moving on to the next section. While the Hawks have seen a decline in their offensive rebounding percentage this season, this appears to have been a calculated decision in an attempt to improve their transition defense – and the math is working out in their favor thus far.
Looking at Atlanta’s second chance points numbers, they are scoring 13.8 second chance points per game this season – one of the lowest figures in the league, however it’s only slightly below their mark from last season (14.6 second-chance points per game). A difference of 0.8 points per game.
On the defensive end, the Hawks are conceding the lowest frequency of opponent transition possessions (15.5%) and rank fifth in transition points allowed per game (21.0) – a significant improvement from last season when they ranked seventh in opponent transition frequency (17.8%) and 18th in transition points allowed per game (23.5). A difference of 2.5 points per game.
While the relationship between offensive rebounds and opponent transition possessions is not perfect (live-ball turnovers typically lead to transition opportunities as well), I’d be willing to wager that a fair amount of the decline in opponent transition frequency is a result of the Hawks eschewing the offensive glass in favor of bolstering their defense. Given that they’re coming out a net-positive relative to last year, I’d say the strategy is working out so far.
Quin Snyder talked about the offensive glass on Friday as well, noting that the frequency at which the Hawks drive to the basket is another reason for the low offensive rebounding numbers:
“We have to be careful because we have a lot of guys that are driving to the rim. It’s very difficult to crash the offensive glass without putting yourself in a very difficult possession to defend. But there are times, particularly on three-point shots where we crash and try to get extra possessions. That’s been something that I’ve talked about.”
Friendly Opponent 3P-Shooting Numbers
One more trend we’ve seen take shape through the first seven weeks of the season has been the drop in opponent three-point shooting percentage – something I noted in last week’s article as well. Per nba.com/stats, Atlanta ranks ninth in the league in overall opponent three-point accuracy, with their opponents shooting just 34.8% from beyond the arc. This is a massive improvement from last season when they ranked 28th in opponent three-point accuracy (37.7%), and a difference that ranks as the fourth biggest year-to-year improvement in the NBA through the first seven weeks of the season.
While there is certainly some luck involved when it comes to opponent shooting, given how drastic this improvement is, I figured I would dig a little deeper into the data to try to find an explanation. The charts below plot NBA team’s opponent three-point shooting frequency and accuracy, sorted by defender proximity. The ‘x axis’ shows the percentage of the opponent’s overall shot attempts that the shot type makes up – naturally, teams shoot fewer ‘contested’ threes than ‘open’ ones.
A few things jump out from this plot. First, the Hawks are doing a good job on closeouts — with their opponents taking the fourth-highest frequency of ‘contested’ three-pointers in the league – though they are getting rather unlucky as their opponents are converting these looks at a 36.1% clip, the fifth-highest opponent accuracy on this shot type this season.
Second, while the Hawks are allowing the 10th lowest frequency of ‘open’ threes, their opponents are shooting just 35% on these looks – the fourth lowest mark in the NBA. Last season, Atlanta allowed a similar frequency of ‘open’ threes, though their opponents converted them at a 39.7% clip, the eighth highest accuracy on this shot type in 2024-25. With these shots making up over 20% of their opponent’s overall attempts, it’s safe to say there is some luck involved in this area this season.
Atlanta rank in the middle of the pack in both opponent frequency and accuracy on ‘semi-contested’ looks this season, though they’ve seen a significant drop in their opponent’s accuracy on these attempts, with their opponents shooting 34.2% through the first seven weeks after shooting 37.2% (the highest mark in the NBA) last season.
Overall, while I do believe the Hawks have been slightly better at defending the three-point line this season, their opponent’s three-point shooting numbers are somewhat deflated as Atlanta have gotten fortunate with some of their opponent’s misses.
The Importance of Turnover Creation and Prevention
One more area I wanted to discuss today is how important turnover creation (on defense) and turnover prevention (on offense) has been to the Hawks success this season.
Per cleaningtheglass, Atlanta are fourth in the league in defensive turnover rate (16.3%) and rank fourth in points scored off turnovers (21.4). On the other end, despite losing their All-Star point guard just five games into the season, the Hawks haven’t seen a significant difference in this category from last season to this season, ranking 15th in offensive turnover rate and 20th in points allowed off of turnovers (18.9).
Leading the charge for Atlanta on the defensive end is none other than Dyson Daniels. After leading the league in steals last season, ‘The Great Barrier Thief’ ranks second* in the league in steals so far this season with 2.2 swipes per game. Jalen Johnson is second on the team in steals at 1.6 per game.
*Cason Wallace is the league leader
As you can see in the plot below, the battle in ‘points off of turnovers’ has been a pretty strong indicator of Atlanta’s success from game to game this season, as they are 12-4 in games where they’ve outscored their opponents in ‘points off turnovers’, and just 2-7 in games where they’ve been outscored by their opponents in this category.
That’s all for this piece! The Hawks return to action on Friday, taking on the Detroit Pistons on the road in what should be a hard-fought matchup. Atlanta have lost both of their games against the Pistons this season with their most recent matchup being decided by a single point.
Tipoff for that one is at 7 PM EST on FanDuel Sports Network.
Until next time!
