The Atlanta Hawks and the Dallas Mavericks are about to tipoff their game in Atlanta and both teams just announced their starting lineups for tonight’s game.

Hawks:

G- Trae Young

G – Dyson Daniels

F – Zaccharie Risacher

F – Jalen Johnson

C – Clint Capela

Mavericks

G-Kyrie Irving

G- Jaden Hardy

F- Naji Marshall

F- P.J. Washington

C- Dereck Lively

Currently, the Hawks rank 28th in PPG allowed, 18th in field goal percentage allowed, 30th in three-point attempts allowed, and 30th in three-point percentage allowed. Per Cleaning the Glass, Atlanta is 20th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 30th in effective field goal percentage allowed.

Atlanta’s offense has struggled to produce in the last two games and they are going to face one of the NBA’s best defenses so far this year. The Hawks were unable to score 100 points in the loss to Golden State and they had a terrible 1st half against Chicago on Friday. This team has shooting and spacing concerns and that is something that they will have to figure out on offense.

The Hawks desperately need Trae Young to start playing at an All-NBA level. That won’t solve all of the offensive issues this team is having, but it would help. Young had 25 points and 13 assists vs the Bulls, but most of the production came in the second half when the game was out of reach.

After a great stretch of games on offense and defense, Dyson Daniels has struggled to score the ball, but the defense is still great. He shot 3-14 from the field on Friday vs Chicago and has not found consistency with his three point shot. The Hawks are counting on him to provide that and he will be tasked with guarding Kyrie Irving tonight.

Zaccharie Risacher has been in the starting lineup for the Hawks for most of the season, but he is struggling to shoot the ball and he only played 16 minutes on Friday vs Chicago. Would Quin Snyder consider moving De’Andre Hunter back into the lineup? He played close to 30 minutes on Friday and is performing well this season, especially on offense. This is something to monitor going forward.

Jalen Johnson is coming off of a 25-point, 13 rebound performance vs the Bulls and he will be counted on tonight vs Dallas. Defensively, Atlanta needs more from Johnson, but he has shaken off a slow start and is playing well.

The center position has been mostly underwhelming for Atlanta this season, but Clint Caplea is coming off of his best game of the season offensively. He scored 21 points and pulled in 11 rebounds in the loss on Friday and he is going to be a key player tonight vs the center duo of Dereck Lively and Daniels Gafford. Onyeka Okongwu is struggling on both ends of the floor and the Hawks do have Larry Nance, but Nance does not play often and did not on Friday vs Chicago.

Snyder mostly used a nine-man rotation against the Bulls, with Kobe Bufkin, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Okongwu, and Hunter coming off the bench. Perhaps the only good thing that came out of Friday’s loss was that Bogdanovic finally looked like himself again. He scored 16 points and shot 4-8 from three in the game and after two bad games to start the year, he finally played well. Bufkin is one of the players who has really struggled this year, but he should be given time to try and figure things out. Will this be the rotation for Atlanta tonight or will guys like VIt Krejci and Garrison Matthews get more minutes?

While the record might not indicate it, the underlying numbers show that Dalls is one of the NBA’s elite teams. The Mavericks are 9th in PPG, 8th in FG%, 22nd in three-point attempts, 22nd in 3P%, 18th in free-throw attempts, 9th in rebounding and 8th in turnovers. Per Cleaning the Glass, Dallas is 4th in points per 100 possessions, 10th in effective field goal percentage, 6th in turnover percentage, 14th in offensive rebounding, and 20th in free throw rate. Defensively, this is shaping up to be the best defense Dallas has had in years. They currently rank 9th in PPG allowed, 5th in FG% allowed, 9th in three-point attempts allowed, and 10th in three-point percentage. Per Cleaning the Glass, Dallas is 7th in points allowed per 100 possessions and 4th in effective field goal percentage allowed.