Toronto Raptors obliterate Atlanta Hawks 112-78

On the second night of a back-to-back, the Atlanta Hawks came out listless and leaden and waltzed into a buzz saw against the Toronto Raptors at home.

In easily the worst performance of the season for the Hawks, only 3 players scored in double figures: Dennis Schröder, Taurean Prince and Marco Belinelli. The Raptors, on the other hand, had 7 players score in double figures and every player that was active scored at least 2 points in this game.

The Hawks trailed by 45 at one point in this contest, and much of the damage was done during a brutal stretch in the 2^nd quarter, when they were outscored by a whopping 25 points – 39 to 14. The home team was outrebounded 46 to 32, out-assisted 31 to 18 and the game’s leading rebounder was the 6-foot-tall point guard Kyle Lowry with 13… what a game.

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

Two major categories the Raptors absolutely dominated were points in the paint and three-point shooting. The Raptors nearly doubled the Hawks’ points inside, with the Raptors notching a monolithic 50 points in the paint and the Hawks managing only 26. Moving out to the three-point line, the Raptors eviscerated the Hawks there as well, with the away team going 13 of 32 (40.2%) from beyond the arc and the Hawks only managing 6 of 27 from downtown (22.2%).

Surprisingly, the Hawks lone team bright spot was a stellar performance at the free throw line, where they went 20 for 23 – a huge number for a team that wasn’t doing a whole lot else on the floor.

Individually, the Hawks had some frightening stat lines – as expected in a game they lost by 34. None of the starters finished with a box plus/minus higher than -20 – showing you just how difficult a night this was for the home team.

Dennis Schröder “led” the team with a game-low -28 in BPM. He looked listless and spent for much of this game after expending a lot of energy the previous night against the Knicks. Schröder finished with 14 points on 4 of 11 shooting with 1 assist and 4 turnovers in 26 minutes of play. Yikes.

Starting for the third straight game at power forward, John Collins had one of his worst games of the season. Collins only logged 20 minutes, despite not committing a foul for the first time in his career. JC seemed out of sorts all night, and his trademark bounciness was not present as he only scored 4 points, nabbed 2 boards, had 3 turnovers and was a -24 in BPM.

DeAndre’ Bembry, who played his first extended minutes since returning from wrist surgery, showed signs on defense with quick hands and constant movement, but he could not translate any of that movement into fast-break opportunities, as his finishing at the rim has seemingly evaporated following the injury. Bembry had a wide-open breakaway layup after a steal, and somehow managed to rim it out innocuously.

The 4^th quarter was utter garbage time, but that was the only quarter in which the Hawks outscored the Raptors (a barnburning 20-13 advantage) and led to the only positive BPM scores on the team.

Tyler Dorsey, in his first game back since being sent down to the Erie Bayhawks for a short G-League assignment, led the Hawks with a +7 BPM. Dorsey was hyper-aggressive on offense – willing to heave up 6 shots (including 4 three-point attempts) in his 12 minutes of play, scoring 6 points off those 6 attempts.

Dorsey should really be getting more playing time, as his jumper looks rock-solid, and his willingness to shoot threes is something the Hawks could desperately use since the only other player on the roster who shoots threes with any regularity is Marco Belinelli – and, as a rookie, Dorsey has much more upside than Marco does.

Miles Plumlee, in his first game as a Hawk, was the other BPM darling. Despite putting up a goose egg in all major categories (Plumlee had a single turnover, that’s it) in his 9 minutes of play, Plumlee was a +6, probably because he was out during the only quarter in which the Hawks outscored the Raps.

The most important part for Plumlee on this night was just getting playing time, since he had been injured and DNP’d for all the Hawks prior games up to this point.

Next: Atlanta Hawks’ energy defeats Knicks’ apathy 116-104

After this rather dispiriting loss, the Hawks have 4 days off and return to action on Thursday, November 30^th at home against the Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m. EST.