The losing streak continues.
The Atlanta Hawks suffered an eighth successive defeat as they lost a tightly contested affair to the Indiana Pacers on Saturday night, 132-127. Trae Young led the Hawks with 34 points and 17 assists, while Dyson Daniels added 23 points. For the Pacers, recently named All-Star Pascal Siakam scored 20 points, while Andrew Nembhard added 19 points.
Heading into last night’s game, the Hawks were in the midst of reeling in a lot of ways — their season is falling apart as their top-6 aspirations began to fade, Jalen Johnson is ruled out for the season, and the Hawks went to a red-hot Indiana (now 11 wins in their last 13 games) without Johnson, Clint Capela, and Bogdan Bogdanovic — making this affair a potentially bleak one.
In the first quarter this is certainly how this began to look, especially as the quarter progressed as the Pacers’ pace and threes picked up, and the hosts opened a 16-point lead by the end of the first quarter (rising to a game-high 18 points in the early stages of the second quarter).
A 14-point second quarter effort from Garrison Mathews certainly played a role in reducing this Pacers lead, with Mathews hitting three three-pointers and shooting 5-of-6 from the free throw line.
Young did well getting off the ball in some of these scenarios, especially this first three for Mathews where Young is double-teamed:
For Mathews’ second three, again, he’s found by Young, and Mathews shows zero hesitation to let the three fly:
For Mathews’ last three of the quarter, Young finds Daniels near the baseline and a deft touch pass from Daniels to Mathews in the corner leads to another three-pointer:
Aided by Mathews, the Hawks cut into the Indiana lead and outscored the Pacers 40-28 in the second quarter to make this a game — and a game the Hawks would take the lead in the third quarter. Trae Young had played playmaker in the first half (10 assists) but took a more front-and-center scoring role in the third quarter, scoring 13 points as both teams traded blows.
The fourth quarter began with Zaccharie Risacher hitting shots (scoring 11 points in the fourth quarter), including two threes in the corner. One of those threes is worth looking at, it’s that three-pointer where Risacher doesn’t bring the ball down; he catches the ball high and just goes immediately up with the shot and drains it:
It’s a beautiful shot from Risacher — it just looks so smooth and fluid — but unfortunately for the Hawks they were left wanting on offense from essentially every other offensive player other than Risacher and Young (13 fourth quarter points). Both sides would go toe-to-toe for much of the final frame, but one key stretch took the Pacers away from the Hawks.
With the game tied at 119 with under four minutes left, the Hawks miss two attempts at the rim — first with Young and then with Daniels:
The Pacers then get a three to fall as Myles Turner’s screen on Daniels removes him from the play and the pass to Siakam allows him an open three:
The Hawks get a good look at a three themselves in the corner as Young finds De’Andre Hunter on the drive, but Hunter cannot hit the three:
The Pacers get another look at a three as, again, an off-ball screen completely frees the shooter — in this case, Nembhard — in the corner and he hits the wide-open three to give the Pacers a six-point lead with under three minutes to go:
A six-point lead may not be much in today’s NBA, but it was more than the Hawks could overcome; they were unable to bring the lead below three points until Young hit a three with 27 seconds left.
You would think that this would be fine — the shot clock is on and the Hawks would have the ball and, in theory, time. But with just under three seconds between shot and game clock, the Pacers could just hoist the ball up at the 24-second mark and leave the Hawks with virtually no time to work with, so the Hawks elect to foul instead. From here, the Pacers hit their free throws, and the Hawks unable to hit threes to reduce the margin and fall to an eighth consecutive defeat.
Sadly, there wasn’t a ton of quotes from Hawks head coach Quin Snyder and the Hawks as it pertains to the game itself as a whole, so it’s difficult to get a sense on the mood/analysis/reflection from the Hawks following the defeat. Heading into the game loss itself perhaps shouldn’t be too much of a surprise just from a talent point of view — on the night, the Pacers have a healthier roster and are absolutely rolling right now. But as the game unfolded the Hawks had earned the right to win that game, and both teams were as deserving as each other — the numbers all around are fairly similar: points, percentages, turnovers, assists, etc.
One glaring area which swung the game, however, was the bench — 44-31 in the Pacers’ favor. Outside of Garrison Mathews, the Hawks’ bench effort was disappointing. Obviously, there are injuries to Bogdanovic and Capela, that immediately doesn’t help, but what hasn’t helped lately is that Vit Krejci has struggled to involve himself offensively (this hurt when Young was off the floor), and De’Andre Hunter’s game was puzzling. Hunter has been good this season, many times he’s swung a game off the bench and made a very notable impact, yet last night he took just five shots. He just wasn’t involved on the offensive end, and the Hawks need him to be involved and active offensively, especially when they’re missing players.
The non-Young minutes were not good for the Hawks, and Hunter and Krejci, and Keaton Wallace, play big roles in those minutes. And these didn’t go Atlanta’s way last night, the bench combining for a plus/minus of minus+39, and that includes the plus-9 of Garrison Mathews. Plus/minus can be a misleading stat, but I do think it tells a pretty fair story of the disparity between the two benches — in a game that was as tight and even as it was, I think it was arguably the biggest deciding factor in this game.
Trae Young, I thought, balanced the team very well last night, taking a playmaking role in the first half and then realizing he needed to take over offensively with the bench not contributing a ton and the offense around him (outside the Onyeka Okongwu pick-and-roll) drying up outside of Dyson Daniels and Risacher’s fourth quarter. Daniels and Risacher played good games, both at differing times but equally needed — Daniels in the first half, Risacher to begin the fourth quarter.
In a season that is beginning to look increasingly lost, there will be more focus on looking for bright spots like the play of Risacher, and it’s been encouraging for him to put together back-to-back games, following his Cleveland performance with a good game last night.
Okongwu was very good in the pick-and-roll and, in general, he looked as good as he has done since he stepped into the starting lineup. The Turner matchup is a good matchup to showcase his mobility and his ability to switch and he played well.
Dominick Barlow got the nod, starting — and playing entirely — ahead of Mo Gueye (a DNP-CD), and Barlow was productive, scoring 10 points in 13 minutes. Some of the misses were ugly, but considering the lack of production elsewhere, perhaps it would have been worth utilizing Barlow a little more on the night?
All in all. a difficult game for the Hawks to lose given how close it was, but that one run ended up proving too much for the Hawks overcome, in addition to the lack of bench production and a bit of an odd game from Hunter. Positives are hard to frame in an eight-game losing streak that will define the Hawks’ season (since Johnson was lost in the middle of it), but Risacher’s performance was encouraging, and Daniels’ work off the dribble has been impressive and has improved as the season has gone on.
“He’s been so helpful, he’s such a smart player,” said Young of Daniels. “He knows when to be aggressive and when guys come over to help, he knows how to get them the ball too. He’s a very smart player; he’s helped us a lot.”
The Hawks (22-27) are back in action on Monday night against the Detroit Pistons (24-24) on the road, as the Hawks try to prevent the losing streak from hitting nine.
Until next time!