Atlanta Hawks outplayed down the stretch, fall to Celtics 110-99

With their winning streak on the line, the Celtics came into Phillips Arena and defeated the Atlanta Hawks handily, 110-99.

The Hawks were victimized by several miscues in the 4^th quarter as well as the usual Hawk-killers Kyrie Irving and Marcus Smart throughout the game. In the end, the Hawks were out-executed down the stretch by a team that was feeling itself after defeating the defending World Champion Golden State Warriors on Thursday night.

Starting out, the Hawks looked good in the 1^st quarter. They led by as many as 16 in this game, and much of this damage was done in the opening frame. The Hawks finished the quarter up 35-20 – possibly a holdover from the Hawks’ transcendent offensive play against the Kings on Wednesday.

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As has been the case in many Hawks encounters, Kent Bazemore opened up the 1^st quarter on a tear. Baze scored 11 of his 19 points in the 1^st quarter, and was showing tremendous burst off the dribble. Bazemore’s efficiency was also encouraging, as he only required a miniscule 8 shots to put up those 19 points (going 7 of 8 from the charity stripe didn’t hurt matters).

Baze tallied 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals as well, but this stat-stuffing performance didn’t curtail Baze from finishing with a rough -14 in box plus/minus. The Celtics came into this game with the best defensive rating in the league, and they had Baze’s game plan sussed out from the start.

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However, despite a tough game in BPM, Baze did not have the lowest score by that metric. Malcolm Delaney, in a return to his role as Dennis Schröder’s backup at point guard, finished with a -15 in box plus/minus.

Delaney was forced back into a role he has never been fully comfortable with in his career since the Hawks were without Isaiah Taylor on this night, who tore his retina during Friday’s practice and will be out 1-2 weeks.

Taylor has emerged as a great substitute for Schröder when the starting floor general is off the floor, and Taylor’s immense burst make him one of the few players who can match Dennis stride-for-stride when they both go into a full sprint.

As was shown last year and early this year, Delaney is much less comfortable as a primary ball handler in a reserve role, and it showed in this game. He is visibly jittery and uncomfortable when he is forced into a more high-usage role as the backup point guard, as he blew a few easy layups in this game that would’ve kept it closer in the 4^th.

Delaney did, however, have a terrific highlight play early in the 4^th. After Shane Larkin stole the ball and was heading for an easy layup/dunk, Delaney measured his steps and timed his leap perfectly to savagely reject Larkin at the rim, which led to a strong finish from John Collins on the other end:

The Hawks’ starting point guard, as usual, led the team in scoring with 23 points on 9 of 18 shooting, including 2 of 4 from downtown, along with 9 assists, 2 steals and only a -1 BPM. Encouragingly, Schröder’s two made three-pointers were of the catch-and-shoot variety, something Dennis has shown little aptitude for in the past. It was nice to see Dennis get into some plays off the play, something that Delaney is much more adept at than Schröder.

After breaking his wrist in the season opener and missing 14 straight games, DeAndre’ Bembry returned to action on Saturday night and played an entire minute. The sum of his performance was a foul on him and against him and two bricked free throws.

Though it was only two shots (i.e. – way too early to tell), his shooting stroke from the line looked a little herky-jerky compared to his smooth, confident stroke from before the injury. Maybe he just needs more reps in order to regain his form.

Perhaps the best, most promising performance of the night belonged to John Collins.

He finished the night with a new career high of 18 points and was playing big crunch-time minutes in the 4^th as Dewayne Dedmon was stuck in a quagmire of fouls on the bench.

JC’s athleticism, energy and leaping ability provided the Hawks with some much-needed punch down the stretch and Collins’s finishing looked tremendous in the game, especially compared to other games this season, going 7 of 8 from the field and 4 of 4 from the foul line.

Collins polished the glass again with 7 total and 3 offensive rebounds. The Glass Master continues to improve on both ends of the floor, and his defensive versatility proved to important on this night.

Though Kyrie Irving nearly victimized him with some of his trademark ballhandling wizardry, Collins held his own on many of the Celtics’ perimeter players, proving that his speed and defensive acumen can be an asset for the Hawks going forward.

A final note on Collins: He logged only 3 fouls in 24 minutes of play, which was a very encouraging sign after a rash of games in which Collins had to warm the bench after picking up flurries of fouls in very short amounts of game time.

Just a few cursory mentions for the opposing team: profoundly gifted Hawks destroyer Kyrie Irving finished with 30 points (12 of which came in the decisive 4^th quarter), rookie Jayson Tatum finished with 14 points (all in the 3^rd quarter, including 2 stellar driving dunks in traffic) and Jaylen Brown finished with a career-high 27 points.

As another noted Hawks crusher, Marcus Smart put his fingerprints all over the final 4 minutes of this game with an opportunistic steal, a gusty offensive rebound / putback layup and a truly heroic flop against Marco Belinelli, in which an inadvertent brush across Smart’s face led to him sprawling to the floor as if he had been body slammed – just great acting.

Next: Atlanta Hawks crush Kings 126-80, notch first home win

The Hawks return to action on Monday at 8:30 p.m. EST against the 10-6 San Antonio Spurs.