Georges Niang, Caris LeVert, and Terance Mann all made their Atlanta debuts in a win over the Wizards.
The Atlanta Hawks notched a second consecutive victory to sweep their back-to-back as they eased by the Washington Wizards on Saturday night at Capital One Arena, 125-111. Trae Young led the Hawks with 35 points and 14 assists, with Zaccharie Risacher added 18 points. For the Wizards, Bub Carrington scored 23 points with Jordan Poole adding 21 points.
Heading into the final affair of the season between the two Southeast Division sides, the Hawks were without Clint Capela (who was on the bench but inactive) in addition to the usual absentees of Jalen Johnson and Kobe Bufkin. The Wizards have almost a starting five worthy absence list, with Alex Sarr, Khris Middleton, Marcus Smart among those not in action last night for the hosts. The recently acquired trio of Georges Niang, Caris LeVert, and Terance Mann were all active for this game having not featured in Friday’s victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, with Niang getting the nod at starting power forward.
The Hawks looked as though they were going to pull away early behind a 7-2 start but the Wizards recovered and the affair was evenly contested for much of the first half, the Wizards holding a 54-49 point lead with 2:45 remaining in the first half following a poor sequence for the Hawks where they fail to secure a rebound and allow Richaun Holmes to score and prompting a timeout from Hawks head coach Quin Snyder. Following this timeout, it was as if a switch was flicked and the Hawks and Trae Young came out firing out of the timeout and took over the game behind a 9-2 Trae Young run, and an overall 14-4 run to end the half to wipe out the Wizards’ lead and to take a five point lead into the locker-room; a lead the Hawks would not surrender for the rest of the contest.
Young was brilliant in this phase of the game out of the timeout, creating space to get off a three with the step-back:
Young again hit from the outside but with a foot on the line it was ruled a two-pointer as he back-pedals from Poole to drain another jumper:
This time, Young gets downhill and a great screen from Onyeka Okongwu grants Young an open path to the rim in which he finishes:
Young’s playmaking was also on display in this stretch, finding the cutting Georges Niang for the layup at the rim:
Finally, to end the half, Niang does well to slip the screen between the two defenders, forcing Malcolm Brogdon to go with Niang and forcing the switch on the perimeter, with Young immediately punishing the switch and burying the three:
A budding combination between Young and Niang to end the quarter, but overall Young was great down this stretch to end the half and swing the momentum in Atlanta’s favor, and this would continue in the third quarter as Young and Niang would again combine to deadly effect as Niang — having missed his first three three-point attempts in the first half — hit four in a row in the third quarter as the Hawks opened up the beyond the first double-digit lead of the night.
After a Washington turnover, Young receives the ball, sees Niang pass in front of him, leads the defense towards his right and then finds Niang on the weakside, who rises and connects for his first Atlanta three:
For his next three, Niang is again on the weakside, initially beginning near the rim before fanning back to the corner and puts the defender — Poole — in a tough spot deciding between Niang and Dyson Daniels. Young, meanwhile, finds Niang in the corner for the three:
For his third three, Niang is much more involved in the play and engages in the pick-and-pop action, with Young finding Niang who hits another three:
In transition, Niang fills the wing and when Young finds him he continues to show the hot hand and knocks down his fourth three-pointer of the quarter to give the Hawks a 14 point lead:
A great stretch to begin the third quarter from Niang — and from Young to find him on all of those baskets — and between the two of them to end the first half and begin the second half they helped break this game open for the Hawks, who would go on to build a comfortable 21-point lead before the end of the third quarter.
The Hawks would ramp this up to a game-high 23 points to begin the fourth — thanks to a quick start from Risacher — but the Hawks took their foot off the pedal and the Wizards made a run to reduce the Atlanta lead to seven points (missing a couple of attempts to bring it down to four points) but the Hawks recovered, re-establishing their double-digit lead and eventually took home a 14 point victory to sweep the Friday-Saturday back-to-back.
The Wizards, even having rest advantage, are obviously not a brilliant team — an awful team in fact — so the Hawks winning in this spot isn’t too much of a shock, though it was slightly concerning almost seeing them throw away a 23-point lead in the second half. The bigger focus rather than the game itself will more so surround the respective debuts of the Hawks’ three recent acquisitions: Georges Niang, Caris LeVert, and Terance Mann.
Niang we’ve obviously touched on in those crucial stints to the end the first half/begin the second half, and he easily had the most impressive debut of the three by a considerable margin — 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 4-of-7 from three to go with six rebounds, three assists and three steals in a starting role, playing 26 minutes.
Postgame, Niang wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to starting the game before praising the abilities of Trae Young, who assisted Niang on five of his six baskets last night.
“I didn’t know what to expect honestly,” said Niang when asked if he was surprised to start. “I think the emotions of how everything kind of happened it felt like a fog, then they were like ‘Oh yeah, by the way, you’re starting.’ … Obviously getting your feet up under, wanting to mesh with what they had going on. I said to someone out there, you watch them beat a Milwaukee team and you’re like ‘I don’t want to come in and mess this up!’ It’s a seamless transition when you have a guy like 11 (Trae Young) finding you and getting the ball up the court at the rate he does, the way he can score, his ability to facilitate. That was easy on myself being a shooter. The starting part, took me for surprise.”
Niang joked about what Young would think of his three missed shots to begin the game before praising Young’s ability to find teammates in their spots.
“To start the game he passed me the ball three times, and I missed three times and I thought ‘I better start making them before this guys is like get this guy off the court,’ joked Niang postgame. “He does a great job of being a heady player and realizing when guys are in their spots and how he can get the ball to them. It’s impressive playing against him to see what he can do and then when you’re playing alongside him it’s even more like ‘Wow, I didn’t realize he had all this to his game.’”
Niang showed some good moments defensively too, and when commented about his defense postgame, Niang was open about his athletic limitations but how his mentality and approach helps overcome these limitations, now in his ninth season in the league drafted 50th overall in the 2016 NBA Draft.
“I think the biggest thing is competing,” said Niang of his defense. “I wasn’t gifted with the sexiest athleticism but getting out there and competing. I think it’s like if you’re at the park: I’m not going to let my guy score. That’s how I’ve been able to somewhat last in this league is just my competitive edge on that end where I’m not going to be a guy you constantly pick on or think you can go at.”
With Jalen Johnson out for the remainder of the season, Niang is the ideal candidate to start at the four with his ability to stretch the floor, his off-ball movement, as well as his toughness. He opens up the floor for Trae Young which helps not just Young operate but open up opportunities for Niang himself with Young’s passing ability, and last night gave everyone a glimpse of the dynamic Niang can add to this team.
Moving on to Caris LeVert and Terance Mann, they didn’t have quite as smooth debuts as Niang.
Both came off the bench but struggled to make a similar impact last night. LeVert was limited by foul trouble, picking up three fouls inside the first quarter and five for the game in total in just 15 minutes of action. LeVert scored nine points on 2-of-6 shooting and 4-of-4 from the free throw line. When he was on the floor, it looked as though Daniels was doing more ball handling but I’m interested to see LeVert handle more in the second unit coming up. Mann, on the other hand, played 24 minutes and scored four points in that time. Mann is known more for his defense, but I thought his overall defense wasn’t brilliant last night and needed help from his big a few times on drives. Mann had a couple decent contests at the rim, but defensively off the dribble he was a little disappointing last night on his debut, and combined with just four points offensively there will be better nights for Mann, and LeVert too with his foul issues.
Elsewhere across the roster, it was a good night for Zaccharie Risacher, scoring 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting, his work around the rim in particular was good.
Risacher’s off-ball movement was solid, catching the Wizards’ defense off-guard on a few occasions, such as this cut to get free before finishing impressively at the rim amidst the contest to score:
The dangers of a running a zone-defense, eh?
In the fourth quarter, another cut from Risacher gets himself in a golden position, and he receives the ball and finishes at the rim:
Risacher was a threat in the open court too, with this play being the pick of the bunch — and a highlight of the game — as Daniels using his elite length to secure the loose ball, whips it behind his back and finds Risacher streaking ahead for the alley-oop:
This next basket isn’t a finish at the rim but an evolution of Risacher’s game that’s been improving upon recently, and that’s utilizing the pivot. Receiving the pass from Young, Risacher drives into the paint, stops, and he pivots a couple of times before fading away from Brogdon and hitting the jumpshot:
Risacher running and finishing at the rim in transition, his off-ball movement, these are elements that were already in his game heading into this season and easy for him to excel at (he’s good in transition especially) but it’s this type of play that is really encouraging to see in terms of Risacher’s game progressing offensively. He’s experimented at times ducking in and trying to make something happen offensively when he has used his dribble, and these pivot moves have been a little more frequent of late — it’s a good start in progressing his offense inside the arc and creating for himself a little more.
Speaking of creating, Vit Krejci (or, Createji, if you’ll excuse the pun), was really positive last night, flirting with a triple-double — 12 points, eight rebounds and seven assists (tying a season-best) in 31 minutes off the bench. Krejci was really dependable off the bench, filling up the boxscore with another steal and two block in addition to the near triple-double.
Krejci deserves credit for his improvement not just last season but this season he’s taken a clear step and between himself, LeVert and Daniels can all handle the ball in the second unit when Young goes to the bench. LeVert can rack up assists, Daniels is clearly improving a lot in this regard (10 assists in the Milwaukee game) and this element is also present in Krejci’s game, it just overall raises the Hawks’ playmaking ceiling that they can have variety in their options offensively. LeVert and Daniels look to get downhill more handling the ball whereas Krejci can pull up and hit jumpshots off the dribble, shooting 4-of-8 from three last night.
Larry Nance Jr. was also very solid off the bench, scoring 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the field. I worry a bit more about Nance’s place in the rotation once Capela comes back into the fray, and Niang’s addition is obviously not ideal for Nance in theory but Nance is ever the professional in this scenario and deserves credit for his play last night.
All in all, the Hawks played a very strong game — albeit against a poor Wizards side — and this was reflective in their 36 assists (their third best showing of the season in this department) with just 11 turnovers (six of them from Young alone), and 18 made threes on 44 attempts (shooting 40%).
The bench was much better than it has been recently, and that’s with the difficult debuts for Mann, who will undoubtedly score more than four points more often than not. The stars were Young (35 points on 13-of-26 from the field to go with those 14 assists) and Niang, their combined efforts together swung this game on its head, and Risacher was very good in the scoring department too on a very efficient 18 points.
After that, Krejci was excellent off the bench, the additions of Nance were very helpful, and even LeVert’s nine points in (foul) limited action was solid too.
The Hawks (25-28) are back in action on Monday as the second game of a three-game trip takes them to another Southeast Division rival, and for the first time this season, the Orlando Magic (26-28). The Magic’ season slid basically as the Hawks’ season unravelled, winning only three of their last 10 games and all of a sudden are in a scrap for, currently, Play-In seeding — the Hawks are 0.5 games back off the Magic for the eighth seed.
Should be interesting!
Until next time!