After the Atlanta Hawks’ 126-123 home loss to the Chicago Bulls last night they’re now on a four game losing streak, and have not won a game since the return of Trae Young. The Hawks’ offense hasn’t been the issue during this four game skid though, it’s been the defense.
Atlanta is averaging 124.25 points per game during their losing streak. However, they’ve given up 134.25 points per during this four game losing streak, and earlier today Greg Clarkson, Noel White, and Jason Longshore explained why the Hawks’ issues on defense right now aren’t related to Trae Young's return.
“A lot of what’s going on has been going on before Trae [Young] got cleared to come back. The defense had been inconsistent, Dyson’s [Daniels] shooting is completely inconsistent, his ability to handle the ball right now is so inconsistent that it’s kind of hindering what you want to do in the backcourt whether Trae is there or not, and Jalen [Johnson] looks amazing, but some of the defensive struggles are on his end to, like some of the weak side help isn’t there like it was last year, and there may be some individual stuff going on on the court right now, and not just with him but just across the board, and it’s just not equaling out to wins right now.” Noel said
With the offense the Hawks have they don’t need to have one of the top defenses in the NBA, they just need consistent slightly above average defense, and they’ll be able to contend with the best teams in the league.
At 15-16 with a tough stretch of games coming up to end the year the Hawks better work out and fix their defensive issues fast before they dig themselves a hole that’ll be tough to get out of.