Surprising Hawks buy into team approach but say ‘it’s not easy’

So, think it's easy to play for one another, to pass when others would shoot, to really not care if your scoring average is in the stratosphere?

It's not. Just ask the Atlanta Hawks All-Stars. All four of them.

"It's not easy. It's not easy at all," Paul Millsap said Friday. "You have to have the right guys, guys who are willing to make sacrifices to play those roles. And we have guys that are willing. But it's surprising especially in our game today to have 12 guys on the same page."

Others say it. The Hawks do it. Teams closer to the lottery than title contention will talk of sharing and all-for-one and one-for-all approaches. A lot of good that talk has done. But these actions have done the Hawks a lot of good. They crammed Millsap, Al Horford, Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver onto the Eastern roster for Sunday's All-Star Game at the Garden. And Mike Budenholzer is the coach. A 43-11 record will do that for you.

They are fourth in scoring defense (96.8), sixth in scoring (103.4), one of only two teams (Portland) to place both in the top 10. And their best individual scorer?

Teague, who ranks 31st in the league at 17.0. So the team with no one in the top 30 becomes only the seventh team to pack four guys on an All-Star roster.

"It's very ironic," agreed Horford of the four stars. "It is a challenge to play this [unselfish]. People make sacrifices. It is a team sport. But usually the people that sacrifice the most are the most successful."

The Hawks are a throwback, almost. They move. They cut. They pass. They can shoot — and shoot from deep at every position. And they get along.

Jeff TeaguePhoto: NBAE via Getty Images

"We really enjoy being around each other. It's fun," said Teague, the point guy in the middle of everything. "Great group of guys. Nobody has any problems. Nobody has an ego. We check it at the door. That's really it."

Actually, it's a bit more.

"Very good players. The coaching we're not sure about," Budenholzer said in total deadpan.

Well, these players are sure. To a man, they swear by Budenholzer, who is in his second year with the Hawks after his run in San Antonio as an assistant. A little Gregg Popovich pedigree never hurt anyone.

"Bud has this way about him," said Korver, who is vying to become the first player to shoot better than 50 percent on 3's (.528), 2's (.516) and 90 percent on free throws (.920). "We really respect both how he teaches the game and the system but also who he is, his willingness to look you in the eye. Bud does a great job, and they brought in pieces that fit. They didn't just bring in random pieces for his system."

Listening, Knicks?

"And how we play, it's probably a little rare. Kids are taught a lot of isolations, a lot of one-on-ones," Korver said. "There's not a lot of off-the-ball stuff. People really don't teach how to use screens."

So they use all that stuff in Atlanta. By gum, it's so crazy it might work.

"I always talk about the players we have and the players embracing the way we play. They embrace the way we play and reap the benefit. We work hard, but I don't know if it's hard what we're doing," Budenholzer said. "Our players, their guts, heart, insides, embrace playing in a very unselfish way."

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