No team will catch the Hawks off guard with a zone defense again this season. Not if veteran point guard Tyronn Lue has anything to do with it.

After watching his teammates struggle against Portland’s zone in an exhibition loss Sunday, Lue vowed to make sure they’d be ready for it the next time.

“Once everybody gets healthy and we get all our shooters out there, they’ll be in trouble,” Lue said. “They can play a zone if they want to … they’ll be in trouble.”

Lue, one of six Hawks regulars to miss Sunday’s game, won’t be in uniform tonight when the Hawks host Minnesota at Philips Arena. Nor will third-year guard Salim Stoudamire. Both are continuing their recovery from injuries, Lue from offseason knee surgery and Stoudamire from a hamstring strain suffered earlier in training camp.

Without two of their best outside shooters, the Hawks didn’t appear to have any answers for a defensive scheme opponents are likely to throw at them on a regular basis this season.

But aside from getting all their best shooters back, the Hawks have gone back to the lab in search of other ways of combating zones.

“I think a lot of people are going to try that tactic this year and try to force us into a perimeter game,” Hawks assistant coach Larry Drew said. “I think part of that is because a lot of NBA teams aren’t completely comfortable with the zone right now, so it’s a great way to throw a team off balance and to see if they have the personnel to make shots consistently to beat a zone.

“If that’s not the case, you’re definitely going to see it more and more. But aside from just making shots, we have to utilize our ability to drive the gaps and get into the seams of a zone and not just rely on making shots.

“I think it works two ways. You have to be able to make shots from the perimeter, but you can’t always settle for working from the perimeter. You also have to be able to get into those seams and attack a zone from the inside out as well.”

Anything is an upgrade from the fire-at-will approach the Hawks employed Sunday against the Trail Blazers. They shot .391 from the floor (36-for-92), including 2-for-12 from the 3-point line.

“You’ve still got to push the ball and attack,” Lue said. “Even when they score, you have to get it up the floor fast and eliminate their opportunity to get set in their zone. But the truth is, we haven’t worked on our zone offense a ton until today, so we still have three weeks to work on it. And it’s different when you get those shooters out there on the floor to break it up.”

In the meantime, the Hawks will have to come up with a better way to adapt to the zones that come their way.

“Hey, teams watch film, and they’re always looking for your weakness, so really, whoever is on the floor has to be ready to make shots,” said Hawks forward Josh Smith, who shot 4-for-14 from the floor Sunday. “Even though we had all those guys out, there is no excuse for us to miss all those shots. We’re a better shooting team than that. But the next time we see a zone, we’ll be ready to adapt to it.

“We’ve worked on it now after getting worked over by it. We won’t get caught by this again.”

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By SEKOU SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution