Atlanta Hawks: Rapid Reaction to crushing loss to Coach Bud and the Bucks
A rapid reaction to an Atlanta Hawks defeat at the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Hawks, still without starters Kent Bazemore and Taurean Prince, knew they were going to be facing an uphill battle against former head coach Mike Budenholzer and the red-hot Milwaukee Bucks. And with the Hawks representing the first game of a back-to-back set that has the Bucks taking on the Raptors tomorrow, they were looking to put the Hawks away fast, and did just that.
There were no lead changes in this game and at one point the Bucks led by a whopping 46 points. Budenholzer showed some of his philosophy from earlier Atlanta days, coaching up the squad to the tune of 12 different Bucks players scoring in this game. Atlanta was dominated early by a lack of rim protection or timely help defense, resulting in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Malcom Brogdon easily getting all the way to the rim for layups. And once the Hawks did start providing help defense, they were helping too late, resulting in the Bucks 3-point shooting opening up.
As far as positives for the Hawks, Dewayne Dedmon—a candidate to be moved at the trade deadline—certainly got some opposing general managers attention tonight, going 4-of-9 from the 3-point line. His 5 turnovers and lone rebound in 21 minutes doesn’t look great, but simply being able to bring opposing bigs out of the paint is going to make him an asset.
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DeAndre’ Bembry also played well, leading Atlanta with 19 points off the bench, including shooting 50 percent on 4 attempts from 3-point range, Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce may look to insert Bembry into the starting lineup to get Atlanta off to a better start next time out.
John Collins finished with 12 points and 7 rebounds, and struggled all night with the aggressiveness and length of the Bucks defense. He was stuffed by Antetokounmpo when going for a huge standing dunk, and that pretty much summed up the whole night.
In 19 minutes Antetokounmpo had a near-triple-double with 16 points, 8 rebounds and 10 assists (and 2 blocks and a steal for good measure). Bucks’ guard Khris Middleton had Malcom Brogdon combined for 38 points on 13-of-17 shooting from the field.
The 144 points scored by the Bucks ties there season high, and made the top 5 in terms of most points scored by Milwaukee in a non-overtime game.
Trae Young was burned repeatedly by Eric Bledsoe rejecting screens, especially when he would drive on Young near the baseline. But this game obviously can’t be pinned on any one player. Atlanta had 21 turnovers and the Bucks scored 26 points off of those mistakes. The Hawks gave up 14 3-pointers and an almost impossible to believe 74 points in the paint.
Even for a young team like the Hawks, this was a particularly rough loss. They were never expected to be in this game with the conference-leading Bucks, but allowing them to score a season-high 43 first quarter points is unacceptable by any measure.
Next. John Collins is Having a Stunning Second Season. dark
But again, the Bucks (quite literally) shot the lights out in this one, so Atlanta might want to forget this one quickly and prepare for Sunday’s matchup with the Miami Heat.