Breaking down the 20-point run.
The Atlanta Hawks completed a reversal of fortune of massive proportions yesterday against the Chicago Bulls. Down 21 at one point in the third quarter, the Hawks entered the fourth quarter down 17 points.
Things to that point already appeared rather bleak. The Hawks had allowed Jevon Carter, who came in averaging 1.7 points on 4.7 minutes per game, to hit his season high in scoring just minutes after entering the game off the bench in the first quarter.
The Bulls seemingly couldn’t miss from deep at any point in the game, highlighted by a number of contested pull up threes from Zach LaVine. And hope seemed to fade away for good when Jevon Carter leaked out for a transition layup to put the Bulls up 126-110 with 5:31 to play.
To that point, the Bulls had a 136 offensive rating and were shooting 21-for-39 (54%) from deep. There’s just no way the Hawks can climb out of this hole.
And yet, improbably, that’s when everything changed. Let’s break it down:
5:31 — 16 points down
Scroll up and check out the end of the above clip one more time. Did you see that? It was subtle but monumental.
After Carter scores, Dyson Daniels doesn’t hang his head. Instead, he quickly inbounds the ball and fires the ball all the way to the other three-point arc to an open Trae Young. The napping Bulls transition defense was caught off guard, and Young makes them pay.
5:23 — 13 points down
On defense, Capela shows on a high pick-and-roll — smart, given that LaVine has been cooking all game long. De’Andre Hunter holds up in the post on Vucevic while Capela recovers. Eventually, Daniels forces a tough baseline pass (one that looked out on Williams).
It was still Chicago ball, but the Hawks drained the shot clock and put the Bulls in a tougher position to score.
After the inbound, Jalen Johnson loses the cutting Coby White for a second, but recovers just enough to affect a miss at the rim.
Young grabs the rebound and pushes the pace, dragging four Bulls into the paint with him. Daniels smartly trails the play, and the career 32% three-point shooter makes the most of a catch-and-shoot opportunity.
4:52 — 10 points down
Another possession, another trap on the LaVine-Vucevic pick-and-roll. It’s momentarily a 4-on-3 when Vucevic short rolls, and while Jalen Johnson made a solid effort to try to protect the rim, it simply looks like Williams just fumbled the catch.
After the ensuing inbounds, it’s just a great individual defensive effort in the post from Capela to help force a Vucevic miss.
Trae Young, again, pushes in transition and gets a nice roll on the rim to hype the crowd even further.
4:18 — 8 points down
This, to me, was the key to this whole run. Great team defending and scoring points from the free throw line with a dead clock are recipes for success, and this sequence had it all.
Another aggressive hedge puts two men on the ball to stop Coby White from getting down hill. The Bulls counter this by swinging the ball to the weakside.
But Trae makes a tremendous play to flail his arms and legs and prevent the pass to LaVine, who is aided by a Carter down screen. Daniels and Capela are finally able to recover, and Capela blocks Vucevic for good measure.
What follows is a long outlet and an obvious clear path foul from LaVine on Young, an 88% free throw shooter.
That gave Young two attempts from the stripe, darn near an automatic two points, and the Hawks also retained the ball afterwards.
Good ball movement after a trap on Young gives Daniels a wide open attempt, but arguably the best offensive rebounder in the league once again does the routine. And Hunter makes good on the extra opportunity — just Sixth Man of the Year things.
Ah yes, the classic five-point play.
“We knew in the huddle that it was going to be a clear path [foul call],” said Young. “[The review] was about two minutes. Quin drew up a great play for us out of the timeout. I think they took away the initial action. I think I had that shot at the top of the key. I shot faked and made both of [the defenders] come to me and gave ‘Dre’ a wide open three.”
3:35 — 3 points down
At this point, you can tell the Bulls are rattled, and the Hawks are feeding off of pure adrenaline and the energy of the crowd.
Billy Donovan, the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, made the curious decision to not spend a timeout until well after the damage was done. And in fact, he took a timeout home with him from this game for safekeeping for some strange reason.
Chicago can’t really figure out what to do on defense with the Hawks hounding every screen and handoff attempt. Carter flings a wild overhead pass that is easily picked, and Young provides the heroics on the other end.
3:03 — tie game
After a Johnson foul, Dyson Daniels, the Great Barrier Thief himself, lives up to his name, and Johnson later punctuates the play with a big-to-big scoring play.
2:44 — 2 points up
LaVine has been dialed in all game. To this point, he had 35 points on 13-for-23 shooting. But he bricked this turnaround shot badly — a fitting tribute to the Hawks’ dominant stretch.
Then, a Jalen Johnson offensive rebound caps an enormous, unbroken 20-point run.
An unanswered 20-point run in just 3:30 of game time. Seven straight offensive possessions worth almost three points per possession. Six consecutive defensive stops (worth exactly zero points per possession for you math majors).
One epic turnaround.
The Bulls pulled to within one on the next possession, but the Hawks continued to execute down the stretch and put the game away without any real hiccups. In total, the Hawks finished the game on a 34-9 run as well as a 31-7 run.
“We wanted to keep trying to run and attack,” head coach Quin Snyder said about his team’s efforts in the fourth quarters. “Not get in panic mode. There was enough time in the game, but we needed to make plays together. And getting some stops obviously helped us getting out into the open floor.”
The win pushed the Hawks back over .500 at 16-15 and erased the memories of two earlier double-digit losses to the Bulls this season.
Maybe that 20-0 stretch gives the team a huge boost for the rest of the season, but regardless, the thrilling run should live on in Hawks lore for a long, long time.