Injuries mount for the Hawks as they fall to a disappointing defeat.
The Atlanta Hawks returned to State Farm Arena on Monday night for the second night of a back-to-back but could not return to winning ways, as they fell short against the Washington Wizards, 121-119.
Jalen Johnson led the way with a new career-high of 29 points to go with 12 rebounds, and Clint Capela added 16 points. For the Wizards, three players scored 20 or more points, the highest being that of Jordan Poole’s 26 points with Kyle Kuzma adding 25, and Corey Kispert scoring 21.
For the game itself: A ‘comfortable’ game gets away from the Hawks
Despite the mounting injuries the Hawks were faced with heading into last night — Onyeka Okongwu (left toe injury management) joining De’Andre Hunter (right knee inflammation), Bogdan Bogdanovic (right hamstring tendinopathy), and Kobe Bufkin (right shoulder subluxation) on the sidelines — and being on the second night of a back-to-back, they were still considered strong favorites against a Wizards team that was yet to win a game.
The game started as though this was going to be an easy path to victory as the Hawks opened a 13-2 lead to begin the game. While the Wizards struck back and brought the lead back down, the Hawks extended this lead again to double-digits in the second quarter. While this was brought down to seven points after a tough three from Poole, you still didn’t get the sense the Hawks were in danger of losing this game.
However, in the third quarter the hosts began to lose control, as Kuzma and the Wizards began to heat up offensively, outscoring the Hawks 30-22 to retake the lead towards the end of the third quarter. In the fourth, they continued to hit shots while the Hawks found themselves running out of steam. Washington powered to take a 10-point lead with under four minutes remaining, leaving them suddenly with a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.
Between Johnson and Capela (combining for 15 fourth quarter points), the Hawks began to reel the Wizards in, and brought the lead down to three points off the back of two free throws from Young. They get the stop they needed, with great challenge from Capela at the rim on Kispert’s drive:
The Hawks have the opportunity to either tie the game with a three or cut it to one, and they get two bites of the cherry to do so on the next possession. The first comes from Zaccharie Risacher in the corner, but his three hits the side of the backboard. The Hawks keep the possession alive and it ends up in the hands of Johnson, faced by Sarr on the baseline. Johnson elects to take the shot, having to step-back on account of Sarr’s sheer length and misses the shot:
Tough break for Risacher, and a difficult shot there for Johnson with Sarr draped on him. These misses would prove very costly in this moment, as the Wizards rush down the other end as Poole drains a step-back three to give the Wizards a six point lead with under a minute remaining and surely the victory:
A good contest from Risacher here, but Poole is capable of draining shots like these, and what a time to do it.
The Hawks didn’t give up here, however. Both teams would get to the free throw line and exchange free throws, but where the Hawks managed to close the gap was this three-pointer from Dyson Daniels:
A one-point game now, and Kispert can only split the subsequent free throws, giving the Hawks a chance to tie the game or win it with a three. With no timeouts, Young brings the ball up, initially gets Coulibaly off his feet, leans into a three, but Coulibaly recovers and uses his length to contest Young’s leaning shot which misses, and the Wizards secure the victory:
“We wanted to give him space,” said Hawks head coach Quin Snyder of the final play for Young. “Often times if he’s in the frontcourt like that, we needed to get him open and he did. We’ve got him with the ball in the open floor, and I think Coulibaly’s length bothered him, but that’s the shot he’s taken and made. Glad we got him the ball and he had space, didn’t go in.”
You can understand why the Hawks/Young didn’t look for a screen here because you know exactly what’s happening: it’s just going to be doubled and the Wizards get what they want which is the ball out of Young’s hands, and bet on someone else to go win the game instead. If you look around the floor as Young brings this up, there’s not a lot of options really available to him, no obvious player where the ball should’ve gone to. The Wizards, to their credit, played this sequence well, as did Coulibaly defending Young here and making it difficult.
None of these things, however, change the fact the Hawks didn’t get a great shot to finish and lost a game they ought to have won at home, shorthanded or not. It’s a disappointing result from a game they had some level of control of in the first half and lost it in the second.
That was how the Hawks the lost it in the fourth down the stretch, but there were a number of reasons as to how the Hawks ended up in this spot…
Control slips away in the third quarter among costly turnovers
In the first half, Washington committed 13 turnovers leading to 19 Atlanta points. By contrast, the Hawks committed just five turnovers in the first half. In the third quarter alone, the Hawks committed 10 turnovers, leading to nine Washington points as the Wizards simultaneously began to heat up, with Kuzma hitting three quick-fire threes en route to 12 third quarter points.
“I think we were battling fatigue, is the best thing I could say,” said Snyder of the third quarter turnovers. “They were set in their defense, we were playing a set defense a lot. Their length bothered us some. I’d have to look at the turnovers themselves, some of them were careless and other times they made plays. I thought we were battling fatigue during the course tonight, sometimes your decisions go when that happens.”
When it comes to the turnovers, it’s a little bit of both carelessness and some good Washington defense overall — I actually thought they were really solid in limiting Young, their length was very impressive, in particular Bilal Coulibaly, Alex Sarr and Carlton Carrington (for the record, ‘Carlton’ is way more fun than ‘Bub’).
On this play, Young doesn’t realize how open he actually is to go for a floater but looks to set up Capela on the lob only to have it broken up by Sarr, resulting in the turnover:
In transition, Young’s attempted quick-fire pass attempt to Capela is pounced upon by Coulibaly (though, it was a bit rushed from Young):
Again, Coulibaly proves himself to be a menace with those long arms as he intercepts Larry Nance Jr.’s attempted hand back, leading to a Wizards basket:
This clip is a great example of what was happening so often during last night’s game. You can see how Carrington, Sarr, and Coulibaly combined with their length to prevent penetration here on the Hawks’ five-out offense with Capela on the bench. Even Poole helps here to prevent penetration alongside Sarr.
Again, it’s a combined effort defensively from the Wizards, this time it’s Carrington who sticks with the drive of Young. Kuzma is there too, and then you have the dig from Jonas Valenciunas to help jam the ball off Young and out of bounds for the turnover, all while Carrington sticks with Young:
As Snyder referenced, there were also careless possessions for the Hawks where it got away from them.
There were three travel turnover calls, all of them fair, and that’s not good enough.
One from Capela here underneath the basket:
It’s not all Capela’s fault this one, Daniels shouldn’t have driven and brought the defense with him. That ball needed to go straight to Capela with the mismatch inside.
Jalen Johnson had three travel turnovers last night, two of them in the third, this being one as he drags his feet too often as he sizes up a move off the dribble:
And another one here as he gets caught in the air and doesn’t get rid of it in time as he comes down:
Add to that turnovers like this, where Garrison Mathews just lets the ball slip through his hands:
Again, the Wizards played their part, but so did Atlanta in committing turnovers, some of them were quite careless and they all added up in the second half. In the end, the Hawks committed 11 second half turnovers leading to 11 Washington points, with pretty much all the damage in this regard done in the third quarter alone.
Snyder’s response that these turnovers were based on fatigue I think was a bit lazy. Had they come in the fourth quarter it would be a bit more understandable, but coming out of the locker room in the second half it suggested more of a lapse in concentration and focus from the Hawks, in combination with some good Wizards defense.
Injuries continue to mount
The Hawks were shorthanded coming into this game, but were dealt a further blow when Vit Krejci was ruled out for the remainder of the game — having played just nine minutes — with a right adductor strain.
“It sucks but we just hope he gets healthy and right as quick as possible,” said Jalen Johnson of Krejci’s injury.
Krejci was one of the bench players responsible for handling the ball in the absence of Bufkin, and when he was sidelined it meant more minutes for everyone, which wasn’t ideal on the second night of a back-to-back. Keaton Wallace played two minutes to end the third quarter, but after that he wasn’t seen again.
This further hit to the rotation is far from ideal and one reality Snyder could not ignore postgame.
“We didn’t have depth,” said Snyder. “Bogi and ‘O’ and Hunt, Kobe, Vit. You can’t control those things. We liked the fact it was a 10-point game, and we came back and had the final possession. Biggest thing we can do is try to execute in the things we can and do our best to overcome that and not point to it. Guys try get healthy and the guys that we have get ready to go.”
Young in particular seemed bothered by this latest hit so early into the season, a repeating theme in his Atlanta career.
“It’s not great, it’s not fun,” said Young of the injuries. “Obviously, I wish my team was full and healthy. It feels like I’ve been through this a lot since I’ve been here. Wish I could have everybody out there with me, I know it’d make a lot of things easier for me but they’re not and we’ve got to figure it out. It’s a ‘next man up’ mentality in this league, I know it’s a cliché and everybody says it but we’ve got to live by it and we’ve got to move forward.”
Bench production helps carry the Hawks once again: Mathews impresses again, Nance makes immediate impact on debut
Already, the Hawks would be lost without their bench production. The starters, other than Johnson and Capela, struggled offensively for efficiency last night, and it was left to the bench to pick up the scoring pieces and they responded.
David Roddy was, again, solid, scoring nine points on 3-of-4 shooting and had some good defensive moments again last night. Krejci had scored seven points in his short time on the court, and Garrison Mathews scored another 14 points off the bench, hitting four threes.
When the roster is at full strength, Mathews is, generally, out of the rotation and he’s had to wait for his chance. Snyder praised the work that Mathews has put in, his mental fortitude and his competitiveness as he’s had to wait for his chances, not just this season but last season too.
“I think Garrison’s scoring really goes back to last October, November,” said Snyder. “There was a point where it’s hard when you’re an NBA and often times opportunities aren’t readily available — these are the best players in the world. Garrison’s a guy who’s had to be mentally tough and stay ready to go, sure enough, invariably, these things happen, unfortunately. He’s someone we trust and his teammates trust, and he can shoot the ball. There’s a level of competitiveness and toughness to him and I think he’s been able to be great teammate, whether he’s called upon to play or not. Usually when you’re able to do that — that’s something that’s incredibly difficult — you’re more often than not ready to go and you’re rewarded for it. It was good to see that and he’s going to continue to do that.”
With Okongwu sidelined, Nance made his official Atlanta debut and he was played well, scoring 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting and 3-of-5 from three to go with two steals and a block. Nance should be in the rotation at full strength. He makes impact plays and he would be of real value to this Atlanta team. Shades of this were seen in preseason and last night it was apparent as to his impact.
“Larry’s been good, that’s been the way he’s played and he gave us good minutes,” said Snyder.
The bench scored 45 points last night and are averaging 40.6 points per game so far, sixth best in the NBA at this early stage. Without them in OKC, it would have been a blowout far sooner than it was, and it would not have been close last night either.
Young, Risacher struggle amidst Johnson career-high
This game started off so perfectly for Trae Young, connecting on two threes within the first two minutes, it looked as though as he would go on to have a dominant game. But in terms of scoring, this was as good as it got as Young would not make another shot for the rest of the game, scoring just 14 points on 2-of-15 shooting from the field. Young was excellent in his facilitating role, but scoring the ball was a real struggle for the All-Star guard.
The Wizards played their part in some of this, their length in Coulibaly and Carrington, as well as Sarr inside, deterring Young, and Young settled for a lot of outside shots. Some of these were decent looks that Young can connect on, but some of these were settled shots — perhaps born of frustration that Young wasn’t able to either get inside or often or was sent crashing to the floor when he did.
In his second start in place of the injured Hunter, Risacher struggled to make an impact offensively, scoring just five points on 1-of-8 shooting. There were always going to be some growing pains for Risacher, and I don’t think he’s ready to be starting just yet and would be better served going against second unit defenses as he settles into NBA life and adjusts to the NBA game, the spacing, the defenses, etc. Sadly, the Hawks just don’t have that luxury at the moment at small forward. They’ve played Mathews there in the past, but it’s far from ideal at his size along with Daniels.
Amidst all of this, Jalen Johnson registered a new career-high of 29 points on 11-of-17 from the field to go with 12 rebounds and seven assists.
Johnson looked a lot more comfortable getting to his spots, whether that was on drives:
Or getting to his spot and connecting on jumpshots:
Johnson’s work last night was steady and constant, it wasn’t a ‘shouty’ or ‘loud’ 29 points. It was a little bit here, and a little bit there throughout the course of the game. Snyder has talked often about Johnson letting the game come to him, and I thought last night’s game was a great example of what that looks like.
“He was terrific tonight,” said Snyder of Johnson. “When he’s attacking the rim and making plays for other people, his offense has a way of coming to him and making quick decisions. He was great tonight, he found a real rhythm and that’s the way we need him to play.”
Three travelling turnovers are about the only thing you can say Johnson didn’t do well last night — he was great, and it was the breakthrough performance I think many had been waiting for to begin the regular season and fresh off the contract extension.
All-in-all…
Johnson’s career-night was one of only a handful of positives in what was a poor loss at home to a Wizards team that is expected to be one of, if not, the worst team in the league. Shorthanded and on the second night of a back-to-back are easy lines to use in this spot, and they’re valid up to a point, but the Hawks had everything they needed to win this game despite all that. Young and Risacher’s struggles shooting and the third quarter turnovers really hurt the Hawks when it came down to it.
The Wizards deserve some credit for their streaky shooting and some surprisingly strong defense through three quarters before both teams scored 37 and 36 points respectively in the final quarter, but the Hawks will know one got away from them here…
The good news for the Hawks (2-2) is that they get an immediate opportunity to right their wrongs as they head to Washington to take on the Wizards (1-2) in a rematch.
…Until next time!