It’s been an enthralling start to the season for the Atlanta Hawks (13-9), who have had to re-engineer their style of play on both ends of the floor after losing Trae Young to an MCL sprain just minutes into their fifth game of the season.

The team has responded beautifully in the wake of Young’s injury, doubling down on their activity and aggression on the defensive end of the floor while emphasizing pace, proper spacing and quick decision making on offense. Of course, there have been a few bumps in the road*, but on the whole, it’s been really fun watching this young roster surprise us – and maybe even themselves – with some of their performances as of late.

*Atlanta dropped a winnable game in Detroit on Monday night – albeit on the second night of a back to back. Their rebounding numbers have also been a disaster all season long.

Since sitting out of the Lakers game with a right quad contusion, Jalen Johnson has averaged 24.9 points, 11.1 rebounds and 8.8 assists (3.6 turnovers) on 52/47/78 shooting splits (five three-point attempts per game) over the last 12 contests*. Onyeka Okongwu is shooting a career-best 37% from three this season on a career-high 5.1 attempts per game. Okongwu has also been tremendous at spotting cutters in the halfcourt and is averaging a career-best 3.4 assists per 36 minutes.

*Nikola Jokic is the only player who has topped these numbers over this span.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker has more than doubled his scoring output from last season, averaging 20.4 points per game (up from 9.4 last season) while improving his efficiency. Vit Krejci has cooled off over the last few games but still ranks eighth (!) in the NBA in three-point percentage (45.8%).

Quibble about Zaccharie Risacher’s output all you want, but the second-year pro leads the Hawks in on/off impact this season – with the offense scoring 5.2 more points-per-100-possessions, and the defense allowing 7.7 fewer points-per-100-possessions with him on the floor. If anyone is selling Risacher stock, I’ll gladly buy it up.

Roughly six weeks into the NBA season, I figured now is as good a time as any to check in on some Hawks’ numbers – in chart form!

First up is a simple look at how the Hawks stack up to the rest of the league in offensive and defensive rating. Through the first 22 games of the season, Atlanta ranks 17th in offensive rating (scoring 114.4 points per 100 possessions) and eighth in defensive rating (allowing 112.4 points per 100 possessions). In terms of net rating, the Hawks rank in the middle of the pack — though they are a positive (+2 points per 100 possessions) on the season.

A few (non-Hawks) things that jumped out to me from the plot above. A) OKC’s defensive rating is comically good. The gap between them and the second-best defense in the league (Detroit) is wider than the gap between Detroit and the 23rd ranked defense in the league (Chicago) – wild stuff. B) All of the teams that rank below league-average in defensive rating have also struggled offensively, as none of them have posted an above-average offensive rating this season – exemplifying the relationship between defense and offense on a league-wide scale this season*.

*Per cleaningtheglass, there were five teams who ranked in the bottom half of the league in defensive rating and the upper half of the league in offensive rating last season.

Looking at the two plots above, you can see that while there has been some variance, Atlanta’s defense has, on the whole, been stingier in Trae Young’s absence, holding their opponents to a below league-average offensive output in 12 out of their 17 games with Young sidelined.

On the other end, their offensive has improved after a rocky start to the year. Two of their five worst offensive showing of the season came in the first three games of the season. Since then however, they’ve topped the league-average offensive rating mark in 12 out of their last 19 games. I look forward to seeing how the offense performs with Young back in the lineup.

Digging a little deeper into their performances on offense and defense, the boxplots below show how the Hawks stack up relative to the rest of the league in offensive shooting frequency, offensive shooting accuracy, defensive shooting frequency and defensive shooting accuracy (using data from cleaningtheglass).

If you’re unfamiliar with shooting frequency, it’s simply the percentage of a team’s shot attempts that come from each location of the floor (rim*, short-mid**, long-mid***, corner threes and non-corner threes).

* Shots within 4-feet of the basket

** Shots between 4-feet and 14-feet away from the basket

*** Shots outside of 14-feet, inside the three-point arc

Offense Shooting Frequency

Offense Shooting Accuracy

Defense Shooting Frequency

Defense Shooting Accuracy

Atlanta has done a good job attacking and converting at the rim through the first 22 games – ranking 10th in rim-shooting frequency and 12th in rim-shooting accuracy. Their efficiency at the rim (68.1%) has been a pleasant surprise given that they ranked 21st in this area last season (65.1%), though there is still room for improvement.

From beyond the arc, the Hawks rank right around league average in overall three-point attempt rate, but as you can see from the plot, they’ve done really well at creating/converting from the corners*. Nickeil Alexander-Walker leads the team in both makes and attempts from this area (20-for-41, 48.8%), though Onyeka Okongwu (15-for-35, 42.9%) and Luke Kennard (11-for-22, 50%) have also shot well.

*The second-most efficient shot location!

On the other end, Atlanta’s defensive shot profile is not pretty – with the team allowing the third highest frequency of rim attempts, and the 11th highest frequency of corner threes – though they are still making it work, as evidenced by their top-10 ranking in defensive rating.

Part of the reason for their unfavorable defensive shot profile is that the Hawks are hyper-aggressive when it comes to forcing turnovers, ranking fourth in defensive turnover rate on the season. If one player gambles and it doesn’t pay off, it puts the rest of the defense in a tough position – however that’s just the nature of how they operate, and it’s paid off more often than not this season.

Another reason the defense is working despite their opponent’s shot profile is that their opponents haven’t had a ton of success from the high-value areas of the floor (the rim and the corners). Despite allowing a ton of shots at the rim, the Hawks rank 15th in opponent rim-shooting accuracy – with Mouhamed Gueye and Nickeil Alexander-Walker making a big impact in this area*. Additionally, Atlanta has gotten fortunate** with some of their opponents misses from beyond the arc, ranking third in opponent corner three accuracy, and eighth in non-corner-three accuracy.

*Per cleaningtheglass, Hawks’ opponents are shooting 60.9% at the rim with Mouhamed Gueye on the floor – 8.1% lower than they shoot when he is on the bench. Similarly, opponents are shooting 64.9% at the rim with Alexander-Walker on the floor – 4.5% lower than they shoot when he is on the bench.

**And it’s about damn time! Atlanta ranked 28th in overall opponent three-point accuracy in each of the last two seasons.

Last but not least, I thought I’d include a scatter plot to help visualize how the Hawks roster has performed in the EPM metric (from dunksandthrees) through the first 22 games of the season. As it’s still early on, these numbers are going to be impacted by how these players performed last season (except for rookie Asa Newell!). It’s also important to keep in mind that EPM is not a holy grail. Nevertheless, I thought this chart provided a nice snapshot of the roster’s strengths and weaknesses. Only players who logged at least 97 minutes this season were plotted.

Including Alexander-Walker (who curiously rates below the league average in D-EPM), Atlanta has seven players in the current rotation who I’d say are average to above-average defensive players. It’s hardly surprising to see Dyson Daniels and Mouhamed Gueye rated as the team’s top two defenders.

Additionally, as you can see, Atlanta also has three players who firmly rate as above average two-way players in Porzingis, Johnson and Okongwu. Okongwu’s play, in particular, has been a real positive and I’d be surprised if Quin Snyder and his coaching staff aren’t planning to deploy more Porzingis/Okongwu frontcourt lineups when Porzingis is back in the lineup.

That’s it for part one of this two-part series. I’ve got some more visuals in mind for next week but if there’s anything in particular that you’d like to see, let me know in the comments!

The Hawks are back in action tonight, taking on the Los Angeles Clippers at State Farm Arena. Tipoff is at 7:30 PM on FanDuel Sports Network Southeast. Stay tuned!