1. Hawks make small team work

With John Collins and Dewayne Dedmon out, the Hawks are struggling to get size at center, but find there are some advantages to playing small.

Hawks Because are down of injuries to one the true center, but what does that even mean nowadays in the NBA? One of their injured centers, John Collins, isn’t really a traditional center. But that’s the position Collins usually plays for the Hawks in the increasingly smallish and position-less NBA. Anyway, my point is that the Hawks don’t have a lot of size with Collins and Dewayne Dedmon on the shelf. And their one true center, Miles Plumlee, just got off the injured list and had a bad season with Milwaukee and Charlotte in 2016-17. Coach Mike Budenholzer started Plumlee against the Nets on Saturday but he played just 19 (effective) minutes, meaning the Hawks played 29 minutes with no real center on the floor.

Tyler Cavanaugh replaced Plumlee and played in the frontcourt alongside Ersan Ilyasova. Later, guard Marco Belinelli replaced Ilyasova, leaving the Hawks with Cavanaugh (a “small-ball” four) at center and wing Taurean Prince at power forward. But the small alignments worked, especially once point guard Isaiah Taylor entered the game and lifted the Hawks with his speed.

The Hawks have a size disadvantage without Dedmon and Collins (or Mike Muscala) in the power rotation, and opponents bigger and better than the Nets are better suited to exploit it. But the Hawks also can press some advantages while playing small.

“Hopefully we can spread it out with more shooting, even though we have bigs that are good shooters,” Budenholzer said. “But I think (it’s) more (about) speed, more guys that can attack and handle the ball in pick-and-roll, get downhill, get to the basket and hopefully either score for themselves at the basket or create open threes versus help.”

Cavanaugh may be the key to making the supersmall lineups work. If he can hold his own defensively at center and spread the floor as a shooter, then the Hawks can remain competitive.

For the season entering Monday night, the Hawks had allowed 9.2 points per 100 possessions less with Cavanaugh on the floor for 130 minutes. His 6.1 defensive rebounds per 36 minutes ranked fourth among Hawks regulars.

“He’s really strong,” Budenholzer said. “He’s got kind of a low center of gravity so he can battle big guys on the board, (like) one of the first games against (DeMarcus) Cousins. He has a strength that serves him well against some bigs in the league.”