Atlanta Hawks Defeated By Trail Blazers 113-97
The Atlanta Hawks dropped Saturday night’s home game to the Portland Trail Blazers convincingly. They never stood a chance against in this one.
In just one month, the Atlanta Hawks hope to be in the midst of their first round playoff series. That future has seemed like an inevitably since Atlanta turned their season around during the month of January. Oh, how things have changed. The playoffs are no longer guaranteed for Atlanta.
Saturday’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers should be a wake-up call. The Hawks came out of the gates with a lackluster effort. Bill Simmons’ body language expert would not have been pleased with Atlanta’s play. The absence of Paul Millsap was felt from the opening tip. Millsap missed the game due to tightness in his left knee.
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Portland jumped out to an 8-0 lead behind the shooting exploits of Damian Lillard. That early run would grow to 17-3 before Atlanta’s offense decided to show up. By the end of the first quarter Portland’s lead had grown to 40-18. Mike Budenholzer was angry at both the officials and his team.
By half-time, the Trail Blazers’ lead would stabilize at 63-46. It could have been much worse. The Hawks were lucky to still be in the game. The third quarter saw them trim the deficit to 12 points, but they could never seem to get Portland’s lead down to single digits. The Trail Blazers came away with a 113-97 win.
Atlanta had no answer for Portland’s hot shooting. The Trail Blazers shot 50.6 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from three-point range. Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum had 27 points and 22 points respectively. Lillard shot 3-for-5 from three-point range, while McCollum’s work in the lane absolutely broke down Atlanta’s defense.
Every Portland starter scored in double figures. Jusuf Nurkic had 12 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. Maurice Harkless also had 12 points, while Noah Vonleh had ten points. Allen Crabbe added 16 points off the bench on 4-for-8 shooting from behind the three-point line.
The following quotes are from the Associated Press’ recap on ESPN.com. Damian Lillard was impressed with his team’s ability to hold onto their large lead.
"“Usually for us, if we have fast starts we allow teams to get back into the game,” Lillard said. “But tonight, I thought we were able to sustain our focus on both ends of the floor. Even when shots stopped falling offensively we still played physical and we helped each other out on the defensive end. That allowed us to hold onto the lead.”"
Mike Budenholzer spoke about Atlanta’s start and the absence of their best player. It’s clear that the team relies on Millsap for more than just scoring.
"“As a group, you have to kind of step up when a teammate goes down,” coach Mike Budenholzer said. “We didn’t do that in the first quarter.”"
Millsap’s replacement in the starting lineup put forth the best effort. Ersan Ilyasova finished with a team-high 23 points on 7-for-11 shooting and 4-for-5 from three-point range. Ilyasova continues to be a tremendous addition to the team.
Tim Hardaway Jr. tried to be the spark that would jolt the Hawks back into the game, as he has so often done during 2017. Hardaway scored 22 points on 6-for-16 shooting and 2-for-6 from three-point distance. With Millsap out of the lineup, Hardaway clearly attempted to take over a larger portion of the scoring load.
Dwight Howard posted the quietest double-double I’ve ever seen. Howard finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds on 6-for-10 shooting. Howard played well, it’s just hard to notice individual performances when the team is constantly down by double figures.
Kent Bazemore finished with 12 points. Taurean Prince and Malcolm Delaney each had eight points. Dennis Schroder had a rough night. Schroder shot 2-for-14 from the field and scored just eight points. He had seven assists and four steals as well, but he could never get his jumper to fall. His poor shooting seemed to hamstring Atlanta’s entire offense at times.
It wasn’t just Schroder, however. The offense didn’t seem to flow without Millsap. Schroder and Ilyasova spoke about the loss after the game. The following quotes come from Chris Vivlamore’s recap in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Schroder says he isn’t going to let these losses change the way he plays.
"“It happens,” Schroder said. “Other games nobody says anything when I play great. It just happens. Everybody has games like that. I’m just going to keep being aggressive and help my teammates get some wins."
Ilyasova has noticed that Atlanta’s defense is inconsistent.
"“It’s frustrating,” Ersan Ilyasova said. “We are losing games when everybody shoots a high percentage against us. We have to be more aggressive and try to figure out them.”"
The Hawks have now lost three games in a row. This losing streak comes on the heels of a three-game winning streak. Atlanta’s inconsistency looks as if it’s going to last for the entire regular season. As I mentioned before, the playoffs are no longer a forgone conclusion.
At 37-32, the Hawks are four games ahead of the ninth place Detroit Pistons. I’d be shocked if Atlanta fell out of the playoffs completely, but stranger things happen everyday. The Hawks will look to get a new winning streak started Monday against the Charlotte Hornets.
Next: Does Resting Dwight Make Sense?
It’s not time to push the panic button, but I wouldn’t blame you if you had your finger hovering over the button.