The Atlanta Hawks lost to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, having a textbook second day of a back-to-back fourth quarter. The starters made a combined 21 shots on 61 attempts, just 34 percent from the field.
The Hawks started the game with De’Andre Hunter on Luka Doncic and Dejounte Murray guarding Kyrie Irving. Jalen Johnson assisted Clint Capela for the first score of the game, and a midrange from Murray gave the Hawks a quick 4-0 start. The Hawks were attacking the rim early. Hunter played really solid defense on Doncic, so much that Doncic missed his first five field goal attempts and scored no points in the first quarter.
Bruno Fernando, Garrison Mathews, and Vit Krejci served as the first round of substitutions off the bench. Krejci, Hunter, and Murray made a three-pointer, serving as the only three makes from distance in the first quarter. Late in the quarter, Hunter stole the ball from Hardaway Jr., came down for a layup, drew a blocking foul, and Garrison Mathews was assessed a technical foul shortly after. Then, the call was challenged and overturned to a charge on Hunter, making the whole sequence relatively unconventional.
Kobe Bufkin entered with a couple minutes left in the quarter, and spent some time guarding Kyrie Irving, who he would match up with for most of the game.
Kobe guarding Kyrie, switching, helping, and recovering should give Hawks fans the vapors. pic.twitter.com/CQdKMsfbWJ
— Kevin Chouinard (@KLChouinard) April 5, 2024
The Mavericks finished the quarter shooting just 8-of-24 from the field and 4-of-13 from three. The Hawks scored on 10-of-18 makes from the field, giving them a 31-25 lead thanks to a buzzer-beating jump shot from Bufkin to end the quarter.
Doncic scored his first basket in the second quarter, and the game opened up for the Mavericks from there. With the Mavs on an 8-4 run, Garrison Mathews successfully converted a 4-point play over Jaden Hardy.
Mathews came down a nailed another three-pointer on the following possession. However, Doncic had a quarter closer to the ones we’re accustomed to seeing from him. He scored 16 points with five assists and five rebounds in the second. The Hawks were not in rhythm, often pushing in transition but not finishing at the rim. A Kyrie Irving 4-point play tied the game with 5:30 remaining in the quarter. The Hawks made one three-point attempt on eight tries aside from Mathews shooting perfect on three attempts.
Bogdanovic missed two easy ones at the rim, and the Mavericks took advantage with back-to-back three-pointers, bringing the halftime score to 65-57 in the Mavericks’ favor.
While Bogdanovic briefly found it in the third quarter, it was more of the same story for the Hawks offense. It looked every bit of “latter end of a back-to-back” and more. Bogdanovic made 5-of-6 attempts from the field and 3-of-4 from three, scoring 13 of the 24 points in the quarter. Playing the amount of minutes he has this month, and this season, it is very impressive Bogdanovic was able to find rhythm in this quarter, on a back-to-back. However, the rest of the Hawks combined for just four made field goals.
The Hawks would get scores here and there, but they had nothing consistent to rely on outside of Bogi. The Mavericks offense was not blowing the Hawks away, but you certainly need consistent scores to compete with this on the other end. This was the third three-pointer in a row from Doncic, making it hard for the Hawks to cut into the deficit.
Late in the third, Murray nailed a three-pointer, and then followed a miss with a steal and dump-off to Johnson to cut the deficit to 12 points.
The Hawks were only outscored 28-24 in the third quarter, giving themselves a chance to fight back and win the game in the fourth. But the Mavericks had a 35-2, now 36-2 record, when leading games after three quarters.
To start the fourth quarter, it was Bufkin, Bogdanovic, Wes Matthews, Johnson, and Fernando on the floor. This would be the first minutes of the game for Matthews. Bufkin started the fourth by knocking down a triple, then forcing a turnover on Kyrie Iriving on the following defensive possession.
This would kickstart a 9-0 run for the Hawks, bringing the score to 93-86. After this, Irving sank a three-pointer and a midrange. A three-pointer from Hunter made the score 100-93, but a lid appeared on the basket from that point forward. The Hawks went scoreless for eleven consecutive possessions. The Hawks were playing fine defense, and the Mavericks were far from overpowering, but you cannot get back into a game with that kind of stretch.
The Hawks shot just 5-of-20 from the field in the fourth quarter, with those makes coming early. They had two points and 0 field goals to show for the final six minutes of play. They held the Mavericks to just 16 points scored in the quarter, but only managed to score 14 of their own.
After the game, Quin Snyder was asked about tonight’s matchup with tired legs, and obviously facing Luka Doncic.
I thought Hunt really took the matchup individually, he’s always going to have some stretches there in the third quarter where he puts some baskets together pretty quickly… I thought we gave ourselves a chance, we continued to fight and work defensively… there are some shots that didn’t go in for us.
Snyder also complimented Kobe Bufkin after the game, noting is pullup 15-footer as a way he has to play.
He did a good job, we extended him a little bit, that group was playing well and he was a part of that, a big part of it. Just want him to make plays for other people but also to be aggressive… he’s excited to be healthy as well.
Next, the Hawks will play the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night.