Atlanta Hawks: Rapid Reactions To a Dominant First Win of the Season

Atlanta’s defense showed up to protect that lead after the break, forcing 3 turnovers to start the 3rd.

Trae picked up right where he left off, and continued to drive past Cedi Osman for lay-ins as he had been doing all day. In fact, outside of a few pretty floaters, Young hadn’t done much inside scoring until today. He seemed to blow past the defense, using a nice scoop touch to finish. It’s good to see another asset besides threes and passing developing early.

At quarter 3’s end Young had 30 points, and the team as a whole led by six. Young found Spellman for this rookie connection that put an explanation point on the quarter:

You might think a veteran, experienced team like the Cavs would overtake the young Hawks in the 4th, but the opposite happened. The Hawks pushed their lead up to 18, and seemingly everyone was knocking down shots.

Bazemore in particular (who had a solid game up to that point) caught fire in the 4th, along with Deandre Bembry. Good for Bembry, who really needed a bounce back from the Memphis game. They finished with 23 and 13 points, respectively.

The Hawks were able to hold on to their lead and wrapped up Sunday with a 133-111 victory.

They shot 22 of 47 (46% !) from three, living up to their “Waffle House Warriors” moniker. The Defense stepped up in a big way after the first, cutting down the Cavs offensive rebounding and not allowing easy trips to the line.

Despite scoring just 5 in the fourth, Trae Young put up 35 on the night, with 11 to boot. He played like a true star today on offense, and despite getting caught up in a few screens, held his own on defense.