The Atlanta Hawks’ perimeter defense “has not been good” Travis Schlenk said it himself this morning on The Morning Show with John and Hugh, so now there’s nothing to do but fix it for the Atlanta Hawks. With the 3rd ranked offense and the now 24th ranked defense the Hawks have struggled all season long to get stops consistently. Now, the Hawks are missing their best defender in De’Andre Hunter and even though Trae Young’s defense has been better it’s still bad, but Kevin Huerter is supposed to be a capable defender, Delon Wright was supposed to be a boost on defense at the back-up point guard position, Cam Reddish is supposed to be a two-way player with great defensive instincts, so what’s the problem?
The problem is the effort on the defensive end. This Atlanta Hawks team is deep, and loaded with talent, and when they want to play defense they have guys more than capable of playing good defense. Atlanta Hawks’ Head Coach Nate McMillan recently called out the team's effort on defense after their 115-133 loss to the Denver Nuggets last Friday night, and McMillan has been on the record many times saying that this team is too worried about offense. The problem is simple and so is the solution, but the question is, are the guys going to care enough to fix the problem, and how will Nate McMillan get the guys to care? Travis Schlenk knows this saying “Our Perimeter defense has not been good. We allow the ball to get to the middle of the lane whenever it wants to, and until guys start taking more pride on that end of the floor the coaches can keep showing them all of the film, but we’ve got to take pride on that end of the floor.” Again, it’s not about scheme, or talent, or even personnel, it’s about the guys wanting to play defense, and while Nate can’t coach effort as the Head Coach he needs to figure out how to get his guys to give maximum effort on the defensive end. Travis continued by saying “We are a good offensive team, but we are relying too heavily on that end of the floor, and you just can’t do that if you want to be successful.” Schlenk wrapped up his statement by saying “The season is not over, but we are thirty games into this season now, and next time we talk we’ll be halfway through the season, so there is starting to be a little sense of urgency in least in my mind that we figure this out, but there’s still time to do that.” If there is a sense of urgency in the mind of Travis Schlenk, there needs to be a sense of urgency in everyone’s mind.
Travis Schlenk also updated The Morning Show on the status of Wednesday’s game against the Orlando Magic, and he said it is still “a go”, so for now that will be the Hawks next opportunity to show they actually care about playing defense.