Atlanta Hawks: 3 takeaways from 2018-19 season opener

3. The defense needs work

It was only one game, but the defense was missing assignments and rotations, and that cost Atlanta dearly. This team is going to struggle to score with the better teams in the league, so its main focus should be defense when going up against more talented teams.

There shouldn’t be any panic alarms going off just yet though. New head coach Lloyd Pierce is a defensive-minded coach and all of his former players and staff members have raved about his defensive prowess. He will fix these problems, but it will be a matter of when it comes together.

From just from this one game, it was easy to tell how much Atlanta misses John Collins. The Hawks opted to go with a small-ball lineup with Vince Carter rounding out the power forward spot to replace him. Everyone knew it was going to be tough to defend a bigger lineup with this starting group, but the guys seemed almost confused on where to be at times.

Look for an improved defensive effort and for the young guys to be more sure of their spots once they get a few more games under their belts.