The Atlanta Hawks took on the Heat Sunday night, winning by a score of 106-82.
The Atlanta Hawks got out to a hot start, bursting out the gates to a 13-2 lead, but the Heat recovered, and the teams went back and back throughout a first half that had a glaring lack of offense.
The Hawks lead 38-37, both teams scoring a good amount of points for one quarter, in two. Miami went ice cold from the 3-point line, hitting just 1 on 16 first half attempts, and both teams shot less than 33% from the field.
Miami did not get the same message at the half that Atlanta did, and the 2nd half was all Hawks. The 41 2nd quarter points not only eclipsed their tally from the previous two quarters, and opened the lead up to a commanding 21 points.
It was a lead the Hawks wouldn’t let go of, and rode to a 106-82 victory, their 12th win of the season.
After a slow start, the Hawks ended up shooting 47% from the field and 42% from deep, and outscored Miami 68-44 in the 2nd half to put out the Heat, who fall to 19-19 on the year.
Trae Young and Deandre Bembry (both of whom we’ll take more about later) lead the team in scoring with 19 and 17 respectively.
Here are 3 fully-fledged takeways from the Hawks’ first win of 2019:
Hot against Heat
With the win, Atlanta moves to 3-0 on the season against their division rival. The Hawks certainly have their number at this point, and their matchups with Miami make up 25% of their 12 wins on the season.
This could be seen as puzzling, as the Heat are a team with playoff aspirations and even with the loss tonight putting them at .500, are still in line for a berth.
The tanking Atlanta Hawks, however, have been a bit more testy than some had projected at the start of the season, and themselves have a outside shot at a surprise playoff appearance if they keep winning.
Something that would certainly help the Hawks’ cause would be playing the Heat more.
Tonight’s beat down might have been there third victory, but it was nothing like the former two. Both games prior took place in November and in Miami, and found the Hawks winning by 5 and 2 points, respectively.
Trae Young in particular must enjoy playing the South Beach squad, as he answered his previous two totals of 24/15, 17/10 with 19 points and 2 assists tonight.
The two foes don’t cross paths again for quite a while, as their season series will draw to a close on March 4th in Miami.
A lot can change in the two months between tonight and their next face off (including the trade deadline), but Atlanta will certainly be looking to sweep the Heat that night.
Replacing Mr. Bazemore
Kent Bazemore was just starting to play his best ball of the season when he went down with a injury that will likely keep him out a good chunk of future games.
He, after accepting a role to come of the bench, was already filling in for Taurean Prince in the starting lineup. Daniel Hamilton had taken on the open spot in the previous three games, but struggled to make a positive impact, and after scoring just 2 points in the disastrous Bucks game, coach Lloyd Pierce opted to make a change.
DeAndre’ Bembry was the choice, and he got his 7th career start. He quickly made pierce’s decision look good, and had a great game overall. He lead the team with a +/- of 26, making 7 of 11 shots for 17 points.
This comes his career high 19 points in the aforementioned Bucks blowout, and is the making himself a case to be a starter when Baze does come back from injury.
Surprisingly however, Pierce kept Hamilton near the front of the bench, and his 23 minutes lead the Hawks’ bench and was actually the most play he’s gotten this season. He continues to get minutes over Tyler Dorsey (7 minutes tonight) and Justin Anderson (threw down massive dunk in his 2 minutes). We’ll see how (or if) the rotation differs in the coming weeks, with both Prince and Bazemore slated to return by month’s end.
Trae’s treys improving
Coming out of Oklahoma, many Hawks fans were excited for Trae Young’s ability to shoot the deep ball, and thus disappointed with his slow start from beyond the arc.
In his first 19 games in the league, Trae shot 5.6 a game from outside to the tune of 22%, which is troublesome to say the least. 22% is bad for anyone, but especially bad for someone who’s calling card is supposed to be from that distance.
He’s steadily made improvements to his shot however, and since Thanksgiving Young is shooting 35% from 3, including a perfect 3-for-3 tonight.
Young not only seems more confident letting it fly, it seems that the shot selection has improved as well. He’s still gonna let it fly closer to the half court logo than the three-point stripe, but at less inopportune times and with more separation.
Trae Young has made 22 of his last 49 threes (44.9 percent). Many have been exceedingly long. pic.twitter.com/p5SX0UeDXJ
— Bally Sports: Hawks (@HawksOnBally) January 7, 2019
He’s now also hit at least one from long range in 7 straight games, a career high. There’s no doubt he’ll look to keep his hot hand going, and put his slow start behind him in the coming weeks, and the fans will be right there with him.
That’s it for this one, the Atlanta Hawks get a day of rest before heading north to take on Toronto. Keep it here for a recap to that game and much more Hawks news.