Another buzzer-beater for Young to add to his résumé.
The Atlanta Hawks got their road trip back on track with a dramatic 124-121 victory over the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center on Tuesday night.
Trae Young scored 24 points — including the long-distance buzzer-beater — to partner with 20 assists. Clint Capela added 18 points on 9-of-11 shooting. For the Jazz, Lauri Markkanen scored 35 points with Colin Sexton adding 24 points.
The Hawks were, again, without Jalen Johnson (right shoulder soreness) but were boosted by a return for Bogdan Bogdanovic. For the Jazz, Jordan Clarkson and John Collins were sidelined.
Despite the more notable absence of Johnson, the Hawks were still favored entering the contest and certainly played to that in the first half. On two separate occasions in the first half, the Hawks opened up 15 and 16-point leads, but the Jazz twice pegged them back, using a flurry of threes to do so.
The second half was a much tighter affair, with the majority of the 12 lead changes and nine game ties occurring in the fourth quarter — the Jazz taking a two point lead behind this follow up dunk from Walker Kessler:
The Hawks were slightly unfortunate here as Capela blocks the shot but right into the path of Kessler — there were a few plays similar to this where the Hawks would get stops at the rim but right into the hands of the Jazz for easy follows.
Following the Kessler basket, the Hawks took a timeout, and they came out of it firing. Young brings the ball up the floor with Bogdanovic and Capela coming up top to present a Horns-type option for Young to choose from.
Bogdanovic gets to the screening action first, and the Jazz show a second body on Young while Bogdanovic simultaneously slips the screen. A quick decision from Young gets the ball to Bogdanovic for a quick three to re-take the lead:
The lead was short-lived, as Kessler’s screen sheds Markkanen of De’Andre Hunter, which forces Capela to step up to face the multi-threat of Capela. When the pass is made to Kessler, now slipping to the rim, Dyson Daniels’ costly gamble allows an uncontested path to the rim for the dunk:
This time it was the Jazz lead which was short-lived, as Young links up with Capela’s screen, and sidesteps to another go-ahead three-pointer:
The Hawks did a much better job in this game in protecting the rim compared to the Clippers loss, and on this drive from Markkanen the Finn was forced to adjust his layup attempt inside thanks to Capela’s contest, resulting in a crucial stop for the Hawks:
However, Capela would be called for a three-second violation on the following possession — not what you’d expect to be called for the first time on the game with just over two minutes remaining in the game. The Jazz took advantage, getting to the free throw line through Kessler to tie the game.
The Young-Capela pick-and-roll had caused problems all game and when Capela bursts to slip the screen Young immediately looks to set the alley-oop, only this time Kessler breaks up the oop. Capela collects the offensive rebound, and good Atlanta ball movement after this helps set up a three for Hunter, who gives the Hawks a crucial three point lead:
The Jazz quickly reduced the lead to one point, again, the Hawks get a stop at the rim and Capela is forced to rotate and helps prevent the Sexton basket at the rim, but leaves the door completely open for Kessler to stick the miss:
A series of misses and mishaps occurred, with Young and Hunter missing shots, while Markkanen also missed a shot and committed an illegal screen turnover. Potentially most crucial was this foul committed Sexton:
The foul didn’t lead directly to free throws — as it was the first within the last two minutes — but with 4.5 seconds left on the clock with Young seemingly going nowhere it was a poor foul to concede. More importantly than that, it turned off the shotclock and puts the Jazz in a scenario where they are forced to foul the Hawks. Young is eventually fouled (Atlanta needing two timeouts to get the ball in to Young), and sinks both free throws to give the Hawks a three-point lead.
Out of the subsequent Jazz timeout, Daniels almost gets his hands on the steal on the inbounds but the ball ends up in the hands of Sexton, who hits the contested three to tie the game:
Daniels is not credited for a steal nor a turnover, but looking at this angle it looks as though he bobbles the ball. If that was the case that is hugely unfortunate, and he’s unlucky that the three is sunk immediately afterwards.
However, the Hawks have little time to react — they’re out of timeouts and have just 2.9 seconds to go full distance. Young receives the ball and launches from 49 feet and hits nothing but net, winning the game for the Hawks at the buzzer:
“I’m just glad we won, that’s the first thing that goes through my mind,” said Young of the shot. “That’s a shot that’s 50-50, especially for some people who practice it all the time; it’s not a 100% shot. Thankfully we were tied in the game, it’s way easier to hit a game-winner when it’s tied than when you’re down. I just took my time, I knew we had three seconds so I could take a couple of dribbles to get closer to halfcourt and made sure to use my legs and put some air into the ball and that was important. Glad it went in.”
“He took the ball out so quick and he just shot it I remember looking at the ball and thought ‘I didn’t want to go to overtime!’” added Clint Capela postgame. “Whenever it went in, I didn’t expect it, but it felt good, felt great!”
It’s one of those plays where you need to look at it multiple times because there’s so much to look at: the shot itself, the cold wave goodbye from Young, the bench mobbing Young, the reaction of the Jazz and the reaction of the crowd. It’s not too often you get one giant shared movement of hands going on heads in disbelief, having just tied the game in dramatic fashion and still riding that high with no timeout being taken. All had been accomplished in one fell swoop by Young, who adds another dagger to his collection.
Postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder was asked about Young’s growth and development — a process which Snyder detailed, and details that have been focused upon more in recent months.
“He’s really picking his spots,” said Snyder of Young. “I always tease him about his bombs, but he’s got great range. Sometimes when he gets closer it’s harder for him to get it off and he takes that shot at a very specific time. The reason I bring that up, I think his focus on the shot selection, particularly late too. The last one is a pretty good decision.
“He’s taken a lot of pride in being efficient, and knowing when it’s time to give the ball up and when it’s time to impress himself on the game from a scoring standpoint. That’s a growth process for him. He’s coming off screens where he hasn’t done that before, he’s playing more pick-and-roll with guys like De’Andre — not just Clint and Onyeka — we’re asking him to push the ball in transition — as quick as he is that’s not been a habit for him. A lot of unfamiliar territory to go with a lot of the things that he’s done his whole career and done at a really high level. You don’t want to lose that but he’s open to all those things. He watches tape and he’s watching it more with the coaches, and that’s good too.”
Young finished with 24 points on 6-of-16 shooting, 3-of-10 from three and 9-of-10 from the line. Obviously the last gasp shot was brilliant, but what was almost equally brilliant from Young last was 20 assists with just two turnovers.
“He’s still a floor general and knows how to find his teammates at all times,” said Capela of Young. “He knows every play that he’s running and how he’s going to find them, and he did it at a high level tonight. 20 assists and two turnovers is insane.”
Capela himself arguably enjoyed one of his better, if not his best, game of the season: 18 points on 9-of-11 shooting to go with three blocks. Capela looked like the Capela the Hawks traded for back in 2020. He was brilliant at the rim and a force behind the defensive lines, blocking and impacting many shots.
When Hawks play-by-play commentator Bob Rathbun put the notion to Snyder that this may have been Capela’s best game of the season, Snyder was quick to share the sentiment.
“I would agree,” said Snyder of Capela. “He really finished against one of the best shot blockers in the league. He anchored us, he made some plays defensively and got some defensive rebounds that weren’t easy balls to secure. There were a lot of late drop-offs that are tough passes … those are hard passes to catch and go up in a fluid motion. If you don’t up now you’re trying to score over the top of Kessler, and that’s hard to do too. He was terrific.”
Capela was particularly authoritative at the rim, despite the presence of rim protectors like Walker Kessler.
“I just try to do what I do,” said Capela of his performance. “Run the floor, set screens, finish hard at the rim, crash on the glass. Defensively, I just try to help my teammates on drives but sometimes the guard would miss the shot and the big would get an easy layup. I felt great that I was able to be aggressive tonight and finish at the rim.”
Elsewhere, there were a number of really positive games across the roster.
The dependable De’Andre Hunter scored 17 points off the bench, Bogdanovic hit some big threes off the bench, and Daniels scored an efficient 17 points and dished out seven assists. However, in particular, the efforts Vit Krejci and Zaccharie Risacher were great last night but will have likely gone completely under the radar amidst Young’s winner but deserve a special mention.
Krejci scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting and 3-of-4 from three. Krejci was a lot more decisive in his offense in this game and picked his spots more ruthlessly in this game. At times he has struggled to balance his scoring versus his enlarged playmaking role in the absence of Kobe Bufkin, but last night Krejci was excellent.
Risacher, meanwhile, scored 14 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 from three. 11 of these 14 points came in the first half, where Risacher was by far his most effective. Offensively, Risacher is shooting well, moving well, making great reads — he was just really positive in that first half last night.
In the pick-and-roll, Risacher makes the right read and pass to Capela, though his and Risacher’s efforts are missed at the rim:
Risacher again puts himself in the right position, fanning out beyond the three-point line but missing the three when he’s found:
In transition, Daniels finds Risacher who does well to take the ball in his stride and finish with authority at the rim:
Off the feed from Young this time, Risacher takes it all in his stride and uses his athleticism and pace to attack the rim quickly and decisively for the dunk:
After Hunter is blocked by Markkanen, Risacher picks up the loose ball and does well to wrap a pass behind his back to find Okongwu at the rim, who cannot finish at the rim:
There were a couple of long twos that Risacher took with his foot on the line, but other than this last night was a very positive game for Risacher, and Snyder described the differences between this game and the previous game against the Clippers.
“The Clippers are one of the more physical teams in the league and he hasn’t played against that,” said Snyder of Risacher. “He got to play against that and then he comes out tonight and he’s learning as he goes … he impacts the game in a lot of ways, whether the ball goes in or not. He’s just going to keep getting better because of the way he approaches it.”
All in all, while it wasn’t quite the comfortable victory the Hawks would have preferred over the 9-25 Jazz, but without Jalen Johnson it’s never as easy of a prospect to win basketball games. Nevertheless, a mega shot from Young meant that the Hawks crept over the line — and they needed to.
With each victory now meaning an awful lot even in this earlier stage of the season as a big battle is emerging in the Eastern Conference for seeding 5-to-10, with only two games separating the Milwaukee Bucks in fifth to the Bulls in 10th — the Hawks lie sevent in the East.
The Atlanta Hawks (19-18) are back in action on Thursday to end their six-game road trip against the Phoenix Suns (16-19). The Suns are reeling somewhat, winning just two of their last eight games and in the midst of lineup changes and adjusting to those changes — an opportunity for the Hawks to pounce and finish the road trip 3-3.
Until next time!