In a sport that thrusts a spotlight on its stars, Mike Budenholzer's Atlanta Hawks have been playing in the dark. Yet they just keep winning, doing so 60 times in the regular season to post the best record in the Eastern Conference and four more in the playoffs.
However, they did drop Game 1 of their second-round series to the Washington Wizards, 104-98, Sunday afternoon.
Now, down one game to Washington, the Hawks look to their coach to pull them out of a first-round hole.
When the now-banned general manager Danny Ferry took over in 2012, the Hawks made a point to acquire assets. They'd figure out how to make it work later.
They let Josh Smith walk in free agency. They somehow unloaded Joe Johnson's "untradable" contract to the Brooklyn Nets in a deal that brought back two first-round picks (including the 2015 pick swap Atlanta will capitalize on in June) while also giving them eventual room to sign Paul Millsap to a two-year, $18 million deal.
They snatched up Kyle Korver with a team-friendly four-year, $24 million agreement in the summer of 2013 and DeMarre Carroll to a two-year deal the same offseason, when he was pretty much an afterthought. They made smart draft picks, selecting Dennis Schroder in the middle of the first round and Mike Scott in the second.
They did all this with one major characteristic clearly in mind: shooting. Everyone on the Hawks can make shots away from the rim, all the way down to stretch 5 Mike Muscala. Even after 38 wins and a first-round playoff exit last year at the hands of the No. 1-seeded Indiana Pacers, we should've seen this coming.
"I think [the Pacers series] helped the confidence of a lot of guys," Teague said. "We played a team who was really good last year, a No. 1 seed, and we had an opportunity to take them down."
But that series wasn't the only omen of a 60-win team which finished seven games better than anyone else in its conference.
There was something beyond the playoff experience and the roster continuity. In an era when spacing is the key that opens the door to scoring points, the Hawks have a smorgasbord of shooters packed into their squad. Add in all the injury troubles last year (Atlanta actually had to buy Muscala out of his Spanish contract in March because it didn't have enough bodies to fill its roster), and the win total was bound to jump.
We got a glimpse of what Budenholzer, a longtime San Antonio Spurs assistant who took over the Hawks before 2013-14, had planned for us last season, when the Hawks were still playing this beautiful brand of basketball. A year of more experience, comfort and familiarity was going to change everything. And it did.
When a team makes a jump like this (22 wins over an offseason), it's usually because there was some vast change in personnel. It could be a new coach or new players, or maybe both.
The additions of Thabo Sefolosha and Kent Bazemore along with Al Horford's return from his pectoral injury have certainly helped, but for the most part Atlanta is the same team as it was a year ago from the top down. Yet 38 victories became 60.
The Hawks have gotten career years from Jeff Teague, Korver, Carroll and Schroder. They've had healthy ones from Horford and Millsap. They've embedded a culture that's found success in southern Texas for the past two decades.
And now they're trying to ride such cultivation to their first Finals appearance since they were the St. Louis Hawks in 1961.
Learning Bud
"I think that's on the coach and the coaching staff that everybody accepts their roles. Everybody gets on the floor and knows what they have to do to help the team win. You've got to give credit to the coaching staff." — Dennis Schroder
This year's Spurs may have been killed off during the first round, but they still live in spirit.
The most recent Coach of the Year, (who also finished third in Executive of the Year voting after Ferry was ousted following derogatory comments he made about 2014 free agent Luol Deng), doesn't love being compared to Gregg Popovich, as wouldn't any young coach trying to prove he can succeed on his own. And he is a young coach. Bud may feel like a seasoned vet, but this is only the 45-year-old's second year leading an NBA team.
Still, even if he may steer the conversation in another direction, he has Popovichian tendencies all over.
He's dry at the podium, not necessarily disappointing with his inability to give a quote as much as he impresses with his ability not to give one. He's about as even-keeled a personality as you'll find outside of San Antonio. But he has hidden energy.
"He got a technical foul one game," first-year Hawk Kent Bazemore said, recalling one of his coach's four techs from the season. "He could see we were getting frustrated, and he stood up, got a technical foul, got the crowd into it. I actually patted him on the butt for it, because that's something I respect, sticking up for your guys."
Fire? From a man who, at times, seems more monotonous than a Bill Lumbergh TPS report? It's almost like it's coming out of nowhere—except Budenholzer appears more calculated than that. And that isn't the only Pop-like attribute he's infused into the Hawks.
He rests guys throughout the year, even if his team doesn't have enough nationally televised games to incite a country-wide riot every time he does it. He runs loads of Spurs plays. He prioritizes transition defense over offensive rebounding to the point that he has to lecture his players about not crashing the boards.
He's even taken to using one of the best, subtle Popovichian tendencies: calling a timeout early in the first or third quarter after his team gets off to a slow start.
"I think it's just to take a second to regather and address whatever it is that may have taken place," said Budenholzer of his early-in-the-half timeouts. "...[just to] make sure how important we know it is, how aggressive we need to be... And sometimes it takes a quick reminder two minutes into a game, two minutes into the third quarter."
It's Pop-like logic, Pop-like cadence, Pop-like composure. And the offense, which ranked sixth in points per possession during the regular season and made guys look good enough to get four Hawks into the All-Star Game, takes after the Spurs as well.
As the NBA continues to delve deeper and deeper into the pace-and-space era, the Hawks remain a step ahead.
The Philosophy
"It's a variety. It's not just the ball movement. It's not just the screening. It's not just getting the guy open. It's how you put all the pieces together to make everything dangerous all the time." — Kyle Korver
Atlanta paces. Atlanta spaces. And it shoots.
So many think that pace-and-space, the Mike D'Antoni way, means getting up a shot early in a possession, but that's not actually true. Whether the attempt comes with 17 seconds or three seconds remaining on the shot clock is irrelevant.
It's all about when you begin your play.
The Hawks' guards make a concerted effort to run the ball up the court and begin their sets with enough time to run a couple of plays.
"Our offense has more to do with pace," said Carroll. "The more pace we have, the more flow we add into our offense with rhythm."
Starting quickly allows Atlanta to run another play or find secondary or tertiary options if the first ones fail. Even if a play takes a little longer than anticipated, the Hawks will often reverse the course off the ball, sending it to a point guard on the weak side or at the top of the key, setting a quick ball-screen and running a meticulous pick-and-roll with the floor spread—another obvious Spursian trait.
"That's the free-flowing (system) we talk about. That's coach," explained Carroll. "We understand how to make offense in general when it's not working at first."
Such exactness can help the Hawks look like a machine when they're going right. But that's not quite the case: Budenholzer's system isn't strict at all. Actually, it allows his players fundamental flexibility.
Somehow, even while improvising so much, the Hawks come off as blatantly well-coached—and rightfully so.
"We don't really run a lot of plays. We run a lot of sets," said Kyle Korver, a strategy which provides an assortment of options for the Hawks' playmakers. "They're actually concepts more than sets. [Budenholzer] gives us a lot of freedom, but he always preaches variety. Don't get caught doing the same thing over and over again."
Predictability is an offense's worst enemy. Even if an attack is finding success with the same play or the same player, immediately returning to that option is a crutch which can be pulled out from under it.
This is part of what happened to Atlanta during its Game 1 loss to Washington. The Hawks came out of the gate strong, posting 37 points in the first quarter while tiring the Wiz players around screens, hitting five threes and piling up 11 assists. It was ideal Hawks basketball, but they got away from that as the game progressed.
By the second half, Atlanta was jacking up early-clock threes and showing off far too many one-pass-and-then-shoot possessions. By the end of the game, they were just missing shots, as exemplified most by the five-offensive-rebound, zero-point play as the Hawks tried to come back late.
"If you do something and it works, you shouldn't go back to it right away. Come back to it in four or five plays," Korver has learned while playing for the man they so affectionately call Bud. "That's a different mindset, too. A lot of times—teams that I've been on—if something works, you just keep on feeding it until it stops working, you know? And here, it's all about variety."
How to Score
"Screens are a big part of what we do...If you want to be any type of player, you have to know how to use them." — Jeff Teague
The Hawks are trying to create their own identity, but the foundation still rests on principles known most in Texas, and that's not just because half-banned general manager Danny Ferry was once a Spurs front office worker or because Bud was a Spurs assistant and even a player for Pop back at Pomona.
The Hawks' offense is creepily similar to San Antonio's, almost like a child who has the exact same mannerisms as his parents.
The main tell? Screening. People talk about Atlanta's and San Antonio's admirable ball movement all the time, but they don't necessarily mention what opens up the rock to fling around so cleanly. Ball movement means little without player movement.
When in doubt, look for the picks. And here's where the men in red are forging their own personality.
"It's a big part of what we do," said Teague. "If you want to be any type of player, you have to know how to use them."
The Hawks screen as voraciously as any other team in the league: on the ball, off the ball, pin-downs, flares, back screens, all kinds of picks. It's why someone like Korver has had the best seasons of his career during his mid-30s.
"I think just the number of screens itself—I think it's probably the most I've ever played in," guessed Korver, who is a historic 49.2 percent from three on six attempts per game this season. "It's an art form. It really is."
If Korver's right, that makes the Atlanta attack somewhere between basketball Van Gogh and hardwood Picasso.
The Hawks set the sixth-most screens per chance in the league, according to information provided to Bleacher Report by Vantage Sports, with a chance defined as "he uninterrupted possession of the ball," a subset category of a possession since offensive rebounds, blocked shots or deflections out of bounds start a new "chance."
The Hawks might be setting even more picks if they weren't getting good looks early in the shot clock, too.
Those off-ball picks aren't always about making sure Korver scores, either. Actually, getting the best catch-and-shoot threat in the world open isn't even the goal of all these screens. All the Hawks are trying to do is get the defense to communicate.
When we talk about the Hawks not having a superstar, something many of their players will be quick to point out, we're really just saying they don't have a dominant one-on-one scoring threat, right? Well, forcing a D to talk is their way of compensating for that hole.
Korver ran off 2,266 off-ball screens (just over 30 per game) during the regular season, according to Vantage Sports. Unsurprisingly, that's more than any other player in the league.
When a defense follows any threat around screens, it has to execute schemes. Maybe it's doubling Korver around the pick. Maybe it's switching. It could employ a number of strategies. But eventually, unless we're talking about the most stifling groups in the NBA on their best days, it's going to make a mistake.
Someone who isn't supposed to will follow Korver around the pick will do so, or a defender will mess up the switch or won't communicate well with a teammate. There are limitless possibilities for what types of errors can occur. We know because we see them time and time again. And when the defense makes its gaffe, that's when the Atlanta ball-handlers are quick to find the open man.
Plays like this give defenses nightmares:
So they're more prone to give up the pass, like in this play from Game 1 against the Nets, when Mason Plumlee's eyes fixated on the Hawks' marksman—if only for a second—as his man, Horford, slipped by him for an open cut to the basket. Korver's underrated passing abilities didn't hurt here, either.
The threat of the shot can be the Hawks' most effective ammo.
"Sometimes, he's just a decoy," said Teague. "You pick your opportunities. You try to read what he does and how the defense plays him."
There are few smoother offenses than the Hawks' when Atlanta hot-potatoes the ball around the perimeter, finds open shooters and makes jumpers. There's a reason this team ranked inside the top five in total passes, assist rate, points created off assists and hockey assists this year. Heck, it threw up a 42-assist game against the Sacramento Kings back in March.
"Everybody knows that everybody can have a big night, and everybody can have a good game," Schroder postulated about his team's unselfishness.
Teague may have expressed it best: "We just flow."
Learning the D
"Coach gives me a lot of freedom, but at the same time, I still try to stick to my principles on defense. As a team, we try to stick to our principles, and that's what's been working so far." — DeMarre Carroll
The offense helps the defense, too. The Hawks set such a variety of screens on the scoring end of the floor that it's almost like they've already seen everything.
"We play with screens, so a lot of the time we know what teams who are good on offense are going to do," Teague spoke of Atlanta's vast preparation. "Going against it in practice and playing against it in scrimmages, you know what to expect."
Carroll echoed Teague's sentiments.
"I think you can recognize screens quicker. You see when they're coming," said Carroll of using the Hawks offense to try figuring out opposing defenses. "You can try to eliminate getting hit by them. I think it helps us wings a lot, because we screen so much that we can see what's about to happen more."
Atlanta better hope that's true. The Wizards' Bradley Beal, who went for 28 points during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, actually ran off the second-most off-ball screens this season, according to Vantage Sports.
Immediate recognition is an obvious key component for defensive success, something the Hawks found when they ranked seventh in points allowed per possession during the regular season. It's even more important for a defense which is afforded as much freedom as Budenholzer's.
"The players have to be on the same page, but coach doesn't know what we're doing out there half the time anyway," joked Teague.
Like on the offensive end, the Atlanta D has this unexpected contrast between spontaneity and scripted brilliance.
You watch the Hawks, see the way they move on either side of the floor, and you figure it has to be infused with discipline—and that's true. Atlanta has as much method as any other team in the league, even if young'uns like Schroder, Pero Antic or Scott make a habit of occasionally moving faster than they're thinking.
We just don't normally associate discipline with making it up as you go along.
It's almost like turning on the TV to watch Seinfeld and actually getting Curb Your Enthusiasm. You're still getting the brilliance of Larry David, and you're still watching some of the best comedy in the world, but instead of seeing scripted television, you're getting improv, a looser style which takes as much control and chemistry as any other.
"We have intelligent players who know how to make the right reads at the right times," described Teague.
Not every team can afford to play that way. It takes trust between coach and player, between player and coach, between player and player.
Al Horford is a classic make-the-right-play performer on both ends. Same goes for Carroll. And Millsap. And Korver...OK, you get it.
Continuity within a roster certainly helps, and the Hawks had a similar core last season, though Horford was injured for most of the year, but freedom to improvise finds success because of chemistry and communication.
"Everybody is great to each other. Everybody likes each other," said Schroder. "That's all our chemistry."
Look to the Bench
"This is our second year together. Team chemistry is a good part of [our success]." — Dennis Schroder
The Hawks bench remains one of the loudest in the NBA. Guys are genuinely pulling for others.
The next time Korver lets go of a wide-open three, don't watch the release or the ball or the defense; take a peek at the Hawks' bench. In all likelihood, the party is beginning before the rock even grazes nylon.
Muscala's three-point goggles and nimble wrist flexibility legitimately make him look deranged. Scott gets into it. So does Shelvin Mack, who has lost playing time since last year—after signing a three-year contract—and still picks the splinters out of his warm-ups to scream for his teammates.
Still, no one parties on the bench like Bazemore, who earned a reputation as the NBA's most enthusiastic bench celebrator during his time with the Golden State Warriors but who is now probably too good to hold that category.
"It’s good to see guys let loose, be themselves and really enjoy the game. That’s what it’s all about. Fans get excited watching you. You can’t just sit over here. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I think there’s only like 3,800 people ever to put on an NBA jersey. You get a front-row ticket to it every night. Why not jump up and down when a teammate posterizes someone or scream on the top of your lungs after a crazy move?
"You can’t take this for granted. You could be gone tomorrow. So that was just my ode to the game of basketball, which has taken me to so many places. It’s my way of showing love."
It's no coincidence Atlanta has guys like Bazemore. It's obvious, even to those on the outside, that the Hawks genuinely like each other. And that can't hurt when your model for success is based on continuity, chemistry and teamwork.
"The front office, it starts with them bringing in character guys who have sacrificed somewhere else," Bazemore mused. "There are guys who are All-Stars. They have their accolades, but we all work together."
The Hawks have made a concerted effort to acquire or keep around those sorts of players (guys like Bazemore, Carroll, Millsap, Horford, Teague, etc.). Still, a strong locker room and even stronger minds are encouraging for a team trying to come back from a 1-0 series deficit against Washington.
And just like how Bazemore is willing to smack his coach on the rear in the proudest fashion possible, he's more than glad to boast about the way his bigger-name teammates treat the rest of the squad.
"That really works. When your captain is cheering you on, saying your name—it really makes you feel good," he mused. "Stuff like that goes a long way."
Coming Back
Atlanta's struggles down the stretch of the year, unfortunately, seemed to bleed into the playoffs.
The Hawks dropped eight of their final 15 regular-season matches. They took six games to beat the 38-win Brooklyn Nets in Round 1, playing them far too closely in the first five contests only to win big in Game 6 for the first time.
You could argue that falling in Game 1 to Washington was more of a schedule loss than anything else.
The Hawks closed out Brooklyn late Friday evening and had one-and-a-half days to prepare for an immediate turnaround, starting the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Saturday afternoon against a Washington team that completely changed from its regular-season style during its first-round sweep of the Toronto Raptors, going small and running an inside-out offense for the first time all season.
"I think we always start with ourselves," Budenholzer surmised after clinching the first-round series against Brooklyn. "No matter how a team has changed, no matter lineups or even personnel to a certain degree, you start with yourself."
That's a studying tactic which circulates around the Hawks culture. Actually, Teague, who is consistently prepared for games, doesn't investigate much opposing game film.
"I actually like to watch our team. I don't like to watch the other team," said Teague, who also claims that he doesn't even love watching NBA basketball, describing, "I never watch the game. I just watch the highlights."
Baseball players might characterize that mentality as see the ball, hit the ball. It's the ultimate "If I do what I'm supposed to do, then it's going to work" philosophy. Except Atlanta hasn't always done its job aptly of late.
The Hawks haven't just hit a malaise after clinching the best record in the conference all the way back in March. There have been legitimate concerns with the Coach of the Year's decision-making during his seven playoff games.
Atlanta's starters only played 18 minutes together during Game 1 against the Wizards. While on the floor, they outscored the opposition by eight points. Yet the team lost by six, and Bud will be questioned for dispersing minutes as if it were January and using an ineffective-of-late bench too often.
“It was a pretty similar rotation to what we used most of the year,” Budenholzer said, via ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz. “It was by design, but I don’t know that 18 minutes was by design.”
There have been and will be questions about his strategy of sitting players in foul trouble for long stretches. Or his choice not to foul when down four and the Wizards had the ball with just over 30 seconds left and a full shot clock on the scoreboard.
But this is only Budenholzer's fourth playoff series. For all the veteran leadership he exudes, it's easy to forget he's just a second-year coach, an experienced and brilliant basketball mind but a still-developing strategist and stylist.
Atlanta is young and stable enough that a championship appearance doesn't have to happen this year. Even a second-round loss to Washington wouldn't damage high hopes for next season.
But with the Chicago Bulls still appearing inconsistent and with the Cavs missing Kevin Love, the Hawks have a chance to do something special, and they could do it all on the shoulders of one of the NBA's best locker room cultures.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of May 4 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.