Hawks Lose Ugly Game to Blazers 110-89
By Chris Guest
Though the Atlanta Hawks kept it competitive in the first half, the Portland Trail Blazers stepped on the gas at home in the 3rd quarter while the Hawks completely imploded. This lackluster showing bled into the 4th quarter, in which the home team sprinted out to a 9-0 run that put the game out of reach for good for the Hawks.
Statistically, the Hawks got utterly dominated. The Blazers outscored Atlanta in every quarter – putting up 30-point quarters in both the 1st and 3rd – and generally outworked and out-executed the Hawks at every turn. There were only three Hawks players who finished with a positive box plus/minus (a massive +2 each) and both of them played during the extended garbage time of the 4th quarter.
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The Hawks, once lauded for their ball movement in the Mike Budenholzer era, only notched 14 team assists in this game compared to the Blazers’ 30. The ball was just not rotating around the court like it usually does for the Hawks, and when it did, the recipient of the final pass missed an open shot on many occasions.
Atlanta could only muster 2 double-digit scorers, both of which were in the starting lineup (which got completely pulverized by their Portland counterparts). Dennis Schröder, as usual, led the team with a rather quiet 14 points on 5 of 14 shooting, and Taurean Prince had 11 points on 4 of 11 shooting.
Prince, in particular, had an interesting game, as it looked in the 2nd quarter like he was going to pop off for another stellar night (á la his 30-point performance against the Raptors); Prince was going at Jusuf Nurkic on both ends – stripping the ball and driving into Nurkic with a vengeance.
Following a very minor scuffle in which the benches paced a little closer to one another, Prince’s play seemed to shrink from the moment, and he finished with those 11 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 steal.
The only positives that can be taken from this game were from the extended garbage time throughout the 4th quarter (which shows you just how uninspiring this game was).
Tyler Dorsey was the beneficiary of the most garbage time minutes on this night, and he finished with a volume shooting performance. After some outlets (such as ours) clamored for Dorsey to get more playing time, he came in guns blazing and finished with 8 points on 2 of 6 shooting (1 of 1 from deep, 3 of 4 from the line) with 2 rebounds, 1 steal and a +2 BPM.
Tyler looked confident and he even canned a ridiculously deep three with ease… though he followed that up by airballing a floater.
Dorsey is far from a finished product, but it is nice to see a willing and able shooter spotting up from all over the floor and also attempting some difficult jump shots off the dribble.
Though Dorsey is a complete liability on defense, his offensive acumen is so tantalizing that it would be nice to see what he looks like in non-garbage time minutes. He might have some rough stretches, but so did John Collins – and look how that worked out.
Lastly, on a heartwarming note, Mike Muscala returned to action after missing the previous 28 games with a mysterious ankle injury. Though he was barely present statistically (only 2 rebounds in 8 minutes), it was nice to see Musky on a basketball court after losing so much time to the injury.
The Hawks return to action Sunday against the Los Angeles Lakers at 9:30 p.m. EST.