What was once Atlanta's greatest flaw early in the season has turned into a shockingly dominant facet of their promising return to form - and all without Trae.
To start the year, Atlanta suffered a quite humiliating loss to the Toronto Raptors. The eye-popping 86 points in the paint that they allowed to the Canadian side on opening night was the most the Hawks have allowed in the last twenty seasons.
The Hawks followed the dismal loss to Toronto with a categorically dull blown victory to the Chicago Bulls, where the same ugly trend of allowing points in the paint reared its head once again.