Hawks overwhelmed by Orlando defense in Play-In loss to Magic

The Hawks now face a ‘win or go home’ situation at home on Friday night.

The Atlanta Hawks lost the first of their opportunities to clinch a postseason berth as they fell to a 120-95 defeat to the Orlando Magic at Kia Center on Tuesday night. Trae Young led the Hawks in scoring with 28 points with Georges Niang adding 15 points. For the Magic, Cole Anthony scored 26 points, and Wendell Carter Jr. added 19 points.

The Hawks entered this game as slight underdogs heading in but played to a level far below that in the first quarter. A solid starting shooting the ball quickly went south, as the Magic hit the Hawks hard defensively in the first quarter, showing their intent to come across the next 48 minutes. The Magic’s swarming defensive activity, size, and length were all significant factors.

On a drive to the rim from Zaccharie Risacher, the Magic defense is there to meet him. Off the challenge from Paolo Banchero, he pushes in transition and finds Cory Joseph for the fastbreak basket:

This time, Young is met by two Magic defenders, with Anthony Black blocking Young, who doesn’t do a great job hustling back as the Magic attack — complaining at the officials — and Black hits the transition three, leading to a timeout:

On the drive, Terance Mann is challenged again by Banchero, and when the shot is missed Onyeka Okongwu is challenged by Carter for the jump ball:

On the drive from the corner, Niang runs into the challenge of Banchero, and his runner ends up falling short:

In hindsight, Dominick Barlow waiting in the dunker’s spot may have been a more ideal option on this possession.

Jonathan Isaac also provides a challenge with his combined size and length, as he comes up with the steal on this attempted pass from Young inside in traffic:

Off of a missed free throw from Caris LeVert, Isaac blocks LeVert’s follow is blocked at the rim:

The Magic ended the first quarter on an 18-2 run to take a 15 point lead into the second quarter — where their staunch defense continued to lock the Hawks down — as the hosts would go on to take a 22-point lead in the second quarter.

The Hawks looked battered but were able to mount a response as the Magic took their foot off the gas and made some mental lapses, conceding some unnecessary three-point plays. 10 points from Young in the second helped stop the bleeding but the Hawks were still up against it with a 14 point deficit to overturn in the second half.

The Hawks chipped away at Orlando’s lead in the third quarter, even whittling it down to just three points, with Young scoring 12 points in the third. While the Magic pushed this lead back up to nine points, a buzzer-beating three from Niang brought the lead down to six heading into a decisive fourth quarter. The Hawks, in response to this momentum shot, reply with a fourth quarter backline of Niang and Barlow; who were promptly obliterated to begin the fourth.

To begin, Carter gets a head of steam and steps into a jumpshot, which he hits over Barlow:

In the pick-and-roll, Barlow receives the ball on the roll and is blocked by Carter. The Magic push in transition and Dyson Daniels fouls Black, who goes to the free throw line:

Two free throws by Young cut the lead but the Hawks immediately concede as Cole Anthony steps into a three off of a simple screening action:

This is all on Barlow…what he’s doing here, I have no idea. This is his screening action to defend…what is Daniels supposed to do here once the Carter screen comes? Barlow is in the paint, and Anthony has an open shot in the fourth quarter of a must-win game.

To compound the run, the Hawks turn the ball over as Niang has the ball slapped away from him on the dig by Gary Harris, and the Magic push in transition, with Anthony finding Carter for the slam, leading to a Hawks timeout:

Putting Barlow in this spot was a mistake, clearly, and a bad one for Snyder to make to begin the fourth quarter as the Magic doubled their lead. The Hawks, meanwhile, would never get as close to the Magic as they were to start the fourth quarter; an opportunity squandered.

Another mistake Snyder made was sitting Mo Gueye — who had a huge impact in this game defensively — for too long. By the time Gueye returned to the game — after a quick blitz from Orlando — the Magic’s lead was back up to 14 points. The Hawks continued to struggle offensively while the Magic hit several jumpshots consecutively to push the lead back over 20 points. To finally compound affairs, Young picked up two quick-fire technical fouls — one for passing the ball to the officials too aggressively, and one for seemingly talking back to the officials — and was ejected from the game. To add insult to his wallet, Young decides to delay the game restarting as he heads to the locker room:

A poor look from Young — not as much the ejection itself, it didn’t really matter as the game was gone by this point (still not ideal to get yourself, the leader of the team, tossed), but there’s no need for the antics on the way out.

This is the explanation Young offered postgame on the incident, citing incidents in earlier games this season against the Magic, plays that went uncalled earlier in the game not just for himself but for his teammates.

“There was a lot plays throughout the game — they’re a physical team — but I’ve had two teammates hurt this year in one game against them,” said Young. “I’m not calling them dirty players or anything like that, they have a lot of talented players, but there’s a lot of plays and moments where guys want to be more physical to the point where it’s not basketball at that point. I think that’s where the frustration got. Sometimes I take my frustration out on the refs not just for me but for my teammates. I see Dyson Daniels going. He may not be household name yet but he deserves the same respect as some of these other guys. If you see a foul you should call the foul, that’s all it was for me. Nothing more, nothing less.”

When asked about the play postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder offered his viewpoint on the incident but also revealed Young discussing the incident in the locker room postgame.

“You’re always concerned when there’s a hard foul that puts a player in some sort of compromising position that can result in an injury, that was my understanding,” said Snyder of Young’s ejection. “I saw that, I didn’t see what transpired afterwards. I know Trae’s aware of that as far as the importance of him keeping his cool. He’s addressed that already with our team and he’s quick to own that. The game was out of hand at that point anyway. This is playoff basketball. There’s going to be adversity, and we have to continue to handle it in a way that we can power through some of that, accept it, respond to it. I think that’s true for the whole game, not just a call here and there.”

“It’s one game, I’m not letting it dwindle, I’m not letting people think about what I’m feeling,” said Young of his postgame message to the team. “I told them I was sticking up for the squad, and I’m not going to let the refs frustrate me like that in our next game, I know we’ve got to win or go home next. I’m going to be ready and I told the team I’ll be ready for them and we’ve got to go home and take care of business.”

In the end, the Magic cruised to a 120-95 victory behind a 41-22 fourth quarter with both sides clearing out the bench with just under four minutes remaining. The Magic will take on the Boston Celtics in the 2-7 matchup, while the Hawks will face the winner of Bulls-Heat to decide which team will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers as the 8-seed.

Speaking postgame, Snyder was pleased with his side’s defensive showing in the third and how it got the Hawks back into the game before baskets from Anthony, Snyder believed, dented the Hawks’ confidence.

“I thought our execution defensively was really good in the third,” said Snyder. “We were able to defensive rebound which got us out and got us some good looks. I thought Cole Anthony, at that point in the game, really took over and score a bundle of points. It was a barrage and that had an impact on us psychologically. We had worked so hard to get back to that point and then the game got a lot harder when that lead got built up again, we got fatigued. A moment where we could put some pressure on them and they extended the lead back.”

“They made some more shots than we did in that fourth quarter,” added Trae Young postgame. “We fought hard and got back in it in the third and made it a game. I’m proud of my team and proud of the way we fought, but sometimes when you get down that much it’s hard to come back. You take so much energy to get back into the game and take the lead and extend it. We never got to that point but we definitely made it a game. I’m proud of the way we fought in that third quarter, in the fourth they just made some more shots.”

The Magic scored 41 points on 60% shooting from the field and hit five three-pointers in the final frame. That alone eclipsed the 4-of-21 shooting the Hawks shot from three-point range — a point of contention for Snyder postgame.

“We were ready to play but one of the biggest issues was we didn’t shoot open shots,” said Snyder. “For us to win we’ve got shoot more than 19 threes, we had guys pass them up.”

“…I want us to shoot at least 40 (threes) and we didn’t come close to that tonight,” Snyder would go on to say. “That’s a barometer for us, not just for threes in a vacuum, it’s usually indicative of how we’re playing.”

This was a very bad time for the Hawks to shoot their season-worst from three — the worst shooting performance up to this point in terms of three-point makes has been three games in which the Hawks hit just six three-pointers (all in losses). Young and Risacher shot 1-of-5 from three, while Niang shot 1-of-4 from three.

Just as damaging last night were the offensive rebounds that the Hawks conceded which, effectively, all led to Orlando second chance points: 12 offensive rebounds for 26 second chance points and this trend was consistent all night long.

Off a missed shot from Banchero, Black gets ahead of Young to collect the offensive rebound and scores the putback:

A deep three from Anthony is missed, but Carter wins the battle inside against Okongwu, collects the offensive rebound and scores the putback, plus the foul:

Following a miss from Banchero on a three, Carter bodies Gueye battling for the board, and Gueye is called for the goaltend on Carter’s second chance effort:

In the second half, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s drive inside is immediately cleaned up by Carter, who dunks the second chance home:

On the drive from Franz Wagner, Okongwu is forced to rotate over, and the Hawks just do not have the size to prevent Isaac from following the miss with a dunk:

Here, Daniels does really well defending Wagner off the dribble, but his hard work is undone as Carter wins the battle in the dunker’s spot against Niang, and Carter fends off Niang, collects the offensive rebound and scores over Niang, plus the foul:

Quite a demoralizing play that for the Hawks. Daniels does well out front and, again, the Hawks are just beaten to the second chance and not only concede a basket but the foul too.

In addition to the lack of three-point shooting and concession of second chance points, the Hawks just didn’t have enough offensive help around Young. Young, while inefficient from the field (8-of-21 shooting) did make up by shooting 11-of-12 from the line to edge up to 28 points on the game. The next highest scorer was Niang on 15 points.

Dyson Daniels was unable to find himself offensively in this game, his floater — like Young’s — just didn’t fall last night. Risacher seemed a little overwhelmed in this spot, shooting 2-of-10 from the field, while Caris LeVert shot 3-of-11 off the bench. The bench scoring was an aspect of this game that did not go in the Hawks’ favor. The Magic’s bench — led by Anthony’s 26 points — outscored the Hawks’ bench 57-30

Snyder was asked about Young’s performance in this game and referenced that the Hawks didn’t space or shoot enough to help Young offensively.

“I think, sometimes, people evaluate Trae’s performance based on statistics,” said Snyder. “I thought early in the game — depending on how they were playing him in pick-and-roll or defensively whether they sent him to his weak hand — those are the times when other guys have to be ready to shoot. When he was in those situations, I didn’t think we spaced as well as we can to create open shots and open passing lanes.”

One major positive in this game was the play of Mo Gueye, who had the task of defending Paolo Banchero, who was limited in this game shooting from the field, scoring 17 points on 4-of-13 shooting from the field.

“We talked about that early that he needed to stay in front and contest and not foul,” said Snyder when asked of Gueye. “I thought the other guys on our team did a great job shifting which helped him stay locked in. I thought the same was true with Dyson on Wagner.”

Gueye’s length and movement — both laterally and getting back in transition — were really positive last night, and his performance last night can be one of reference going forward in terms of his potential — a discussion for another time.

Wagner, similarly, struggled from the field scoring 13 points on 6-of-15 from the field. Daniels did a very good job defensively on Wagner, who was led into shooting 0-of-5 from three which certainly helped the Hawks on those possessions.

If you had said prior to the game that Banchero and Wagner would combine for only 30 points, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Hawks would easily have won this game. But the efforts of Carter, Black, and of course Anthony helped the Magic make up for Banchero’s and Wagner’s scoring struggles.

“The gameplan was trying to make it as difficult as possible for the two heads of the snakes and force other guys to beat us and you have to give them credit, they did,” said Young. “They came in, made shots, other guys like Wendell had a hell of a game on the boards. Their role players did what they needed to do. We didn’t want their main guys to beat us. We did a good job at that but their role players had a good night. That’s part of the reason it’s good you get a homecourt game, role players play better at home and that’s how they won but we’ve got another one on Friday.”

On both ends of the floor, the Magic’s size and length bothered the Hawks significantly, and in tandem with all the other factors discussed (the lineup to start the fourth quarter, the Hawks’ poor three-point shooting, the Magic’s offensive rebounding, the bench disparity etc.) proved too much for the Hawks in this spot. Young’s ejection, while not good enough in the moment, didn’t ultimately decide this game, it was gone by that stage.

Now, the focus shifts to Friday. The Hawks will be hosting the winner of the Bulls-Heat on Wednesday night in an all-or-nothing affair at State Farm Arena.

Win…or go home.