What Quin Snyder Says Atlanta Needs to Do at a ‘Higher Level’
Atlanta The Hawks were once in the top half league in defensive rating, and the eye test showed it. They didn’t allow easy shots, they went back in transition, and they kept the opponents to low goals. In December, any resemblance to what their defense was, and perhaps was, slowly disappeared reached its lowest point in the past two weeks.
The Hawks are now 18th in defensive rating, but have allowed each of their opponents to score over 125 points in their last five games. That’s not a winning recipe and that’s why they lost those five games as well.
Every defeat is not created equal, but the selector Quinn Snyder even knows the one common denominator in all the losses the Hawks have suffered recently.
“Defensively, we didn’t defend at the level we need to put ourselves in a position to win,” Snyder told Clutch Points. “Actually, we were in a position where we might have won if we had defended at a higher level. It encompasses a lot of things. It’s not one thing.
“There are some consistent things. We’ve just got to be better overall. If we’d been doing that and we’d lost a couple in a row, I think it would have felt different. There’d probably be something else we’d have to do better.”
The Hawks allowed the Chicago Bulls to score 152 points in regulation a few games ago, and if they had gotten just one or two more stops, they might have won. The offense hasn’t been much of an issue, and if they can get the defensive side of the ball up to par, things could look a little different.
“Teams put too many points on the board for us … Our offense isn’t too much of a problem,” Trae Young said after the loss to the Miami Heat. “We had a lot of turnovers, but the last few games it hasn’t necessarily been our offense, it’s been our defense, and tonight it was a little bit more of both.”
Although it is The Hawks have some good individual defenders on a team, it takes a collective group effort to see real change on the defensive end. If things don’t change there, there could be a good chance that their losing streak will continue.
2025-12-27 16:44:00
