Preseason Preview: Atlanta Hawks vs. San Antonio Spurs

Game 1 of the preseason is finally in the books.

The Atlanta Hawks defeated the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday 104-83, and everyone looked nice.

Walter Tavares lead the Hawks in both points and rebounds with 15 and 10. The Hawks got the job done without Tim Hardaway Jr, Tiago Splitter, Mike Scott, Jarrett Jack, or Paul Millsap. Tonight, the Hawks will face a tougher match-up, the San Antonio Spurs.

The Spurs have been viewed as Atlanta’s older brother since Coach Budenholzer took over as the head coach. Budenholzer was a student of Greg Poppovich and he brought that pick-heavy, pass first, 3-shooting culture to the Atlanta Hawks franchise. Unfortunately for the Hawks, they have been getting bullied by the Spurs over the past few years. The biggest difference between the Spurs and the Hawks has been talent. Atlanta has a similar playing style, but the Spurs have had more talent.

The combination of Kawhi Leonard, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Manu Ginobli is enough to make any team in the league tremble in fear. Good news is, they don’t have Tim Duncan anymore. Bad news? They replaced Tim Duncan with Pau Gasol. For Gasoline, he may be just as skilled if not more versatile than Duncan on offense. Defensively, the Spurs take a step back with Gasol. This will make a big difference. The Spurs were the #1 team in defensive efficiency last year.

Thanks to Dwight Howard, Atlanta could finally go blow for blow with their big brother. The Spurs are a team that capitalizes off of mistakes. When a team can’t rebound, they don’t have much room for error. Tonight, the Hawks staff will be looking to see if Howard’s ability to grab rebounds and create second chance points can make a difference. If you know Greg Popovich, the starters wont play very many minutes tonight. Popovich is a firm believer of sitting his key players on the bench to get rest.

Similar to Thursday, the Hawks will play their bench players and rookies for the second part of the game. Tim Hardaway Jr. didn’t play last game, so look for him to maybe play this tonight. Also, the Hawks played great defense on Thursday, but keep an eye on their offense. It’ll be hard to score on Kawhi Leonard, so this will be a challenging task for Kent Bazemore. Lets see if he can put up some points on the Leonard.

Jarrett Jack, Tiago Splitter, and Paul Millsap won’t be playing in tonight’s game.