The Hawks lost to the Golden State Warriors with a fully healthy rotation on Wednesday night. The starters: Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson, and Clint Capela.
The Warriors had a 16-15 lead before the first timeout of the game. Daniels, Risacher, and Johnson all had five points. The Hawks were heavily focused on Steph Curry defensively (as teams typically are) and Daniels was tasked with the primary assignment.
A 13-2 run extended the Warriors’ lead to 13 after the break. They would end the first quarter putting up 41 points with a 19 point lead over the Hawks. The shots weren’t falling, which in turn made defense a challenge on the other end.
Trae Young logged his first point of the game on a free throw over halfway through the second quarter. The Hawks steadied around the 20-point deficit range. As a team, they couldn’t find rhythm in any fashion to this point. Finally, the strung together field goals on back to back possessions and Steve Kerr used a timeout. After a decent fight in the second quarter, the Warriors began to pull away. The Hawks entered halftime trailing 67-42.
10-0 run by the Warriors to end the first half when it looked like the Hawks might be semi-alive.
5 turnovers on the last 8 possessions.
Just came unglued.
— Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) November 21, 2024
Five straight points from Onyeka Okongwu cut the lead down to 24 in the third quarter. They battled to chip into the lead, but they still struggled from deep. With under a minute left, the deficit was as low as 17. The score was 90-75 in the Warriors’ favor entering the fourth.
To successfully mount this comeback, the Hawks were inevitably going to have to knock down shots. They failed to do this time and time again. It doesn’t help that Bogdanovic connected on just two of his 14 field goal attempts. They couldn’t buy a break outside of hard earned second chance points. With roughly four minutes remaining, the Hawks threw in Vit Krejci and Garrison Mathews for the first time.
The Warriors maintained full control of this one until the very end, comfortably defeating a Hawks team with some fatigue apparent.