By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
Losers of approximately 100 straight games against opponents not featuring a well-past-his-prime Kobe Bryant, the Philadelphia 76ers head to Atlanta Wednesday night to say hello to Malik Rose and also take on the Hawks. Atlanta sits at 14-12 on the season, and enter play having lost 3 straight games, which has led to actual speculation whether head coach Mike Budenholzer is on the hot seat. The Hawks won a franchise-record 60 games this season. Brett Brown just received an extension while coaching a 1-25 team. Sports are weird sometimes.
There’s no denying though that the Hawks have taken a step back from last year, mainly because they’re not hitting as many three-point shots. As a team, Atlanta has dropped from 38.0% behind the arc last season to 34.1% this year (all stats via NBA.com stats). It’s not the coach’s fault, as the team is draining just 34.7% of their wide open threes (no one within 6 feet), down from 39.4% last year.
Across the board, everyone has just taken a small step back. Coming off multiple offseason surgeries, Kyle Korver is shooting only 39.7% from three, his worst percentage since the 2008-09 season. Paul Millsap has also regressed from 35.6% to 30.1% from three, but has otherwise been outstanding. Millsap is Atlanta’s leading scorer (18.0 ppg) and rebounder (9.3 rpg), while shooting 48% from the field and recording 1.8 steals and 1.2 blocks per game. He’s the closest facsimile to Draymond Green you’ll find in the league today and the 3-year, $59M deal he signed with the Hawks this offseason looks great so far for Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Jeff Teague is shooting 5% worse from the field (46.0% to 41.0%) compared to his All-Star campaign last season, and the Kent Bazemore and Thabo Sefolosha combination has struggled to make up for the loss of DeMarre Carroll in free agency (Bazemore’s injury didn’t help, though he is back now).
As for the Sixers, I would expect we see Tony Wroten and Kendall Marshall in the same game for the first time this season. I wrote about the early returns from Wroten and Marshall in a piece for Today’s Fastbreak (read it and show my editors a national audience cares about the Sixers!). Here was a really interesting bit I discussed regarding Wroten:
“Let’s start with Wroten, who has the worst net rating on the team thus far this season. The offense has cratered with Tony on the court, and it’s easy to see why. Wroten has shot just 32.1% from the field (leading to a team-worst 39.5 TS%) while also sporting a team-worst 19.5 turnover ratio and a team-high 30.5% usage rate. Literally, the Sixers worst shooter and the most careless player with the ball has the rock in his hands more than anyone when he’s on the court.”
Whether Wroten can pick up his game will be a key thing to watch for Philadelphia, as will the budding two-man game between Marshall and Jahlil Okafor. Okafor will be a huge factor for the Sixers, not only because Nerlens Noel will miss another game with his eye injury, but also because Atlanta has been an awful rebounding team this season. The Hawks sport the 5th-worst defensive rebounding rate in the NBA, while also having the 3rd-lowest offensive rebounding rate themselves. Expect Big Jah to put up big numbers in the ATL.
Unfortunately, though I’ve put a lot of negative spin on the Hawks, they’ve still a good team, especially at forcing turnovers, with the 5th-highest opposing turnover rate in the league. Considering the Sixers give it up like a drunken college freshman, that stat doesn’t bode well for their chances of success. A win seems like asking for too much for Sixers fans, let’s hope for four quarters of consistent play and go from there.
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