Keaton Wallace and Daeqwon Plowden lead the Hawks to a road victory!
The Atlanta Hawks prevailed against the odds to register a victory on the road against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night at the United Center, 110-94.
Keaton Wallace led the Hawks with a career-high 27 points, with fellow two-way teammate Daeqwon Plowden adding 19 points. For the Bulls, Coby White scored 16 points, and Zach LaVine added 15 points.
Heading into the game, both teams were on the second night of a back-to-back (though, the Hawks had to travel to Chicago, who were in action at home on Tuesday), but the Hawks were hit with a slew of injuries heading into the affair.
The likes of Jalen Johnson (right shoulder inflammation), Kobe Bufkin (right shoulder surgery), and Larry Nance Jr. (right hand surgery) all continued to miss out, while De’Andre Hunter (left foot soreness), Trae Young (right rib contusion), and Zaccharie Risacher (left adductor irritation) missed the Chicago contest.
The Hawks, therefore, were left with a very depleted roster playing with a nine-man rotation featuring two two-way players — little did they know that these two players would prove to be most instrumental en route to victory.
However, before this became apparent, the Hawks were competitive in the first quarter behind a strong first quarter from Wallace and Dyson Daniels, who scored seven points each. The Bulls committed seven first quarter turnovers, which certainly helped the Hawks and the Bulls would continue to lend this helping hand all game long, committing 20 turnovers on the night.
In the second quarter, an 11-point quarter from Wallace and nine from Onyeka Okongwu helped contribute to the Hawks’ strong second quarter in which they outscored the Bulls 34-22 to establish a surprise double-digit lead.
While the Hawks enjoyed a strong first half, you were left wondering — given all the absences for the Hawks and that the Bulls basically had a full strength roster — when the Bulls would make their run and the Hawks to run out of steam on the second night of a back-to-back. No one would have faulted the Hawks had this been the case.
While the Bulls did make a recovery in the third quarter, the Hawks continued to receive contributions across the board, this time Clint Capela scoring eight points to go along with two big threes from Plowden which helped the Hawks keep pace with an improved Bulls showing in the third quarter. However, the Hawks recovered and took an eight-point lead heading into the final quarter.
A quick burst to begin the fourth — highlighted by threes from Okongwu and Plowden — opened up a 14-point lead over the hosts, and while the Bulls certainly kept the Hawks honest (they certainly had to continue to execute, and they did so) and kept them on their toes for the remainder of the quarter, it wasn’t enough to bring the lead under seven points.
The Hawks eventually opened the lead back out to double-digits and to a secure 16 point victory, behind the efforts of Wallace’s 27 points and Plowden’s 19 points on a near perfect 7-of-8 shooting from the field and 5-of-6 from three.
Postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder praised the efforts of Wallace and Plowden leading the Hawks not just on the offensive end but defensive end too.
“Those two guys, you can’t say enough,” said Snyder of Wallace and Plowden. “It’s not just their productivity — Daeqwon hit shots — the way they defended. You can say it over and over again: be ready, play defense, take your shot when you’re open, don’t be hesitant and that’s what they did. Everybody in our locker room is excited for the way those two guys played because they understand the gravity of the situation. We came here undermanned but those guys step up and we didn’t look undermanned tonight.”
The Hawks’ G League affiliate, the College Park Skyhawks, were also in action on Tuesday night (a game in which Wallace and Plowden both played in before joining the Hawks in Chicago on Wednesday), and with how Wallace and Plowden performed, it was only natural the relationship between the Hawks and Skyhawks was a talking point in the postgame comments from the Hawks.
Snyder was asked about the similarities between the two organisations, alluding to the efforts of Wallace and Plowden on the night.
“They’re playing the way we want to play as a team,” said Snyder. “Sometimes that urgency — doing things for other people — you’re making plays maybe without the ball and when you do that it alleviates whatever pressure guys may feel with an individual matchup and you’re connected as a team. Ironically, you end up with open shots when that happens. Credit our players too, the Hawks roster players had that level of confidence in those two guys.”
Snyder discussed how the Skyhawks, by design, play similarly to the Hawks (with Keaton Wallace gave a much more accurate description of the just how the Skyhawks like to play, with Skyhawks head coach Steve Klei also serving as a Hawks coach (Snyder jokingly referred to the G League affiliate as the “Klei-hawks”).
“They’re doing a lot of the things we’re doing, offensively and defensively so the transition those guys have, there’s familiarity with the way we want to play and that’s what you saw tonight,” said Snyder of the Skyhawks.
Keaton Wallace provided a much more accurate description of how exactly the Hawks and Skyhawks match each other with their style of play.
“Playing with pace, playing with the pass, being able to make reads out of pick-and-roll, find my teammates in the right spots, those are the main focuses in the G League,” said Wallace of how the Skyhawks play.
“It’s like a direct replica of what we try to do up here,” added Daeqwon Plowden of the Skyhawks’ preparation. “The organizations are tied at the hip, and it’s right amount of preparation for today.”
Wallace scored 27 points on 10-of-18 shooting from the field and 4-of-7 from three to go with six rebounds, six assists, and four steals, and posted a plus/minus of plus-29 in 38 minutes played.
“I always stay ready. You got to stay ready, so you’ve got to get ready,” said Wallace of his performance. “A lot of reps in the G (League), so when I get here I play confident.”
Wallace combined outside scoring with inside scoring, finding success shooting the three and driving off the three-point line and getting to his runner.
Here, Wallace uses the Capela screen to get inside and hits the runner as Nikola Vucevic drops in the paint, allowing Wallace to hit his runner:
Okongwu and Wallace combine in the two-man game as Wallace attacks the rim off the Okongwu pass, getting into his runner again, finishing with the left hand this time:
Off of another Okongwu screen, this time Wallace gets a switch on the Bulls and takes advantage, again getting inside to his runner and hitting:
We’ll look at more Wallace offensive plays later on as we discuss other Hawks who played well and featured in Wallace made baskets.
Wallace’s impact on defensive was very notable, with multiple plays impacted, including this defense-to-offense possession where Wallace knocks the ball loose and scores on the other end, drawing the contact and the foul:
On the drive from White, Wallace gets his hand in for a steal as he knocks the ball loose:
Off of a missed Garrison Mathews three, the Bulls secure the rebound. But the pass forward is plucked from the air by Wallace, which leads to a Hawks shot going up from Mathews, who draws the foul and free throws:
Off of a drive from White, Wallace does excellently to stay in front of White and force a difficult shot which is missed:
In the fourth quarter, LaVine gets a head of steam downhill but Wallace does very well to hold his ground on the drive and vertically challenge the shot which is missed:
Wallace was excellent on both ends of the ball, and we’ll look at more of his offensive highlights later. Wallace believes that he belongs at this level, with this latest performance with the Hawks showcasing his talent and abilities.
“I feel like I proved it to myself that I deserve to be here and that I’m capable of playing at this level,” said Wallace of his mindset. “I feel like it was a statement for myself to keep grinding, keep going and knowing my work is paying off.”
Plowden, meanwhile, couldn’t have asked for a stronger NBA debut: 19 points on a near perfect 7-of-8 shooting. Plowden was hot from three, but it wasn’t a case of hitting five threes in a quarter-style of ‘heat-check’ (hello, Mike Scott), but a couple of threes in the third and a couple in the fourth all contributed to the eventual 19 points — an extremely impactful NBA debut.
“Honestly, just going in and trying to make my impact be felt,” said Plowden of his mindset heading into the game. “I really tried to establish myself defensively first but I kind of had the shot going tonight. I just wanted to continue to be in the right place at the right time.”
Plowden was riding a postgame high, buoyed not just by his own performance — seizing the opportunity before him — but by the confidence placed in him by his teammates, who celebrated on the bench.
“It feels amazing,” said Plowden of how he felt postgame. “I feel like I’ve prepared my whole life for this moment and my teammates had the utmost confidence in me coming in, it felt amazing.”
“Daeqwon was balling,” added Wallace of teammate Plowden. “A lot of things that he was doing in the G League carried over to the game tonight. Just for him to come in his first game and do what he did, and we get the dub, it was big time. He showed that he’s an NBA player, his confidence should be at the roof right now with the performance he had! I’m proud of him.”
Wallace and Plowden combined for nine of the Hawks’ 13 made threes on the game, shooting 9-of-13 from three combined. The rest of the Hawks shot a combined 4-of-30 from three — quite an incredible stat that you would not have associated in a 16 point win on the road.
There are some stories that are hard to write in the NBA, and it would have been difficult to predict that in this spot the leading lights for the Hawks wasn’t Bogdan Bogdanovic — as would have been expected in this spot — but two two-way players for the Hawks. Wallace and Plowden were brilliant and their contributions to this win and the circumstances of this game will ensure this will be a memorable victory for the Hawks in their season.
Wallace and Plowden obviously steal the headlines, but Vit Krejci I thought also played a very good game. Krejci scored just 11 points, but that doesn’t tell the full story. One of the narratives of Krejci’s season is that he’s had to balance when to pass/playmake (with the ball in his hands a lot more this season) and when to pick and choose his moments offensively to score. Last night, with six assists and just 10 field goal attempts in this spot, Krejci took more of a playmaking role last night with six assists, and I thought his efforts were underrated in this spot.
On this play, good ball movement from Krejci in the corner helps set up an assist for a Wallace three-pointer:
Krejci and Wallace combine again, this time Krejci drives into the space and Wallace doing well to relocate off the ball and Krejci finds Wallace, who hits a three:
Off of a missed Wallace three, the ball ends up in the hands of Krejci, who could have absolutely taken the quick three himself but elects to shift the ball to Wallace, who steps into another three:
When the ball is shifted to Krejci, he again declines the shot himself when he would have been well within his rights and instead moves the ball to Wallace in the corner, who hits another three:
This will conclude the Krejci/Wallace combinations, but it’s fair to say that without the unselfishness of Krejci, Wallace wouldn’t have reached as many as 27 points and Krejci deserves credit for that.
Krejci also did well to combine with his bigs, connecting on alley-oops to both Capela and Okongwu respectively:
Speaking of Okongwu, he also enjoyed a strong game off the bench, scoring 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field to go with 13 rebounds and a career-high seven assists. It’s these assists that I think were most impressive from Okongwu and a hint of a more untapped aspect of his game.
Here, Okongwu finds a cutting Wallace with a good bounce pass for the finish at the rim:
In the pick-and-roll with Mathews, Okongwu receives the ball and finds the cutting Plowden for his only two-point basket of the night:
Handling the ball with seemingly no options, Daniels creates an avenue for Okongwu to slip another bounce-pass to, with Daniels finishing at the rim plus the foul, tallying another assist for Okongwu:
Okongwu connected with Plowden on a number of occasions, gathering his own miss and finding Plowden for a three:
Again, Okongwu finds Plowden for another three as he gets stuck inside and turns around to find Plowden:
Snyder made sure to highlight Okongwu postgame for his efforts, particularly his ability to pass which the Hawks sorely needed with their two main playmakers — Young and Johnson — absent.
“I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the way Onyeka played,” said Snyder. “His ability, I don’t know how many backdoor passes he threw but being able to play through him — particularly without Trae and Jalen, two of our primary ball handlers — that was really big for us too.”
Capela was also solid in his 21 minutes, while Dyson Daniels scored a quiet 18 points in a good showing for the Australian, adding to the strong performances of Wallace, Plowden, Krejci, and Okongwu which helped the Hawks over the line against the Bulls.
Looking at a more team-wide perspective, the Hawks did a great job limiting their turnovers, committing just 10 turnovers on the night, as well as limiting the Bulls to 6-of-27 from three — a clear point of emphasis for the Hawks heading into the contest.
“That was a big part of the gameplan,” said Snyder of limiting the Bulls’ threes. “They’ve been so good, and we know that. At some point adjusting how you’re defending certain guys and certain situations. We’ve had five different coverages against this team this year. It shows you sometimes it’s your commitment and your execution more than anything — these guys embraced the game plan. Part of it is not being fortunate that someone misses, it’s trying to limit attempts. I thought that was the key thing for us tonight is that they didn’t get as many of those shots up.”
The shooting numbers for the Hawks weren’t brilliant; they shot just 41% shooting from the field, 30% from three (13-of-40), and 15-of-22 from the free throw line. This game wasn’t so much about the Hawks playing extraordinarily well (although there were lots of good individual performances) but how awful the Bulls were — it cannot be stated enough how bad the Bulls were last night and how tragic of a loss this was on their home floor with the personnel the Hawks were missing. 20 Chicago turnovers on the game led to 22 Atlanta points, not to mention allowing 14 offensive rebounds which led to 27 second chance points for the Hawks, including this inexplicable play in which Daniels misses a free throw and just catches the rebound where he stands with the Bulls stationary:
Unsurprisingly, this play led to an immediate timeout from the Bulls, but accurately reflects just a lack of attention and desire from the Bulls, whereas the Hawks played with the necessary desire to win, their mindset clear from the beginning.
“Continue being aggressive,” said Plowden of the mindset of the group heading into the game shorthanded. “We wanted to continue getting downhill to touch the paint, and that’s what we did. We had a lot of kickouts and sprayouts, and I was one of those people knocking down the shots, so I feel we executed the gameplan to a T.”
It is insane that the Hawks won this game by 16 points despite Bogdanovic and Mathews combining for 1-of-17 from the field and 1-of-15 from three; if you had said those two would shoot that percentage before the game you would be (normally!) correct in assuming the Hawks would absolutely lose this game. However, it speaks not just to how poor the Bulls were but the mega contributions of Wallace and Plowden in particular to pick up a much needed and welcome victory on the second night of a back-to-back, having won out against the Suns on Tuesday night.
The Hawks (21-19) are back in action on Saturday against the Boston Celtics (28-12) at TD Garden. Boston will be on the second night of a back-to-back, in action in Boston on Friday night against the Orlando Magic.
Until next time!