Atlanta Hawks: A Recap of Each Overtime Period in Wild Loss
By Dallin Duffy
An overtime-by-overtime breakdown of one of the most memorable games in Atlanta Hawks history.
Friday’s battle between the current 12th (Atlanta Hawks) and 13th seeds (Chicago Bulls) in the East, turned into an all-out marathon and one of the best games of the NBA this season.
Both the Bulls and Hawks set new franchise-highs in scoring for a game, with the Bulls logging a shocking 168 points. The Hawks managed 161 points, both of which are highs for this season. The 168 points for the Bulls is the highest output by a team since 2008, when Carmelo Anthony‘s Nuggets accomplished the feat against Kevin Durant‘s Sonics.
This was the first game in which both teams scored 160 since the highest-scoring game in NBA history: Pistons at Nuggets in December 1983 (when both teams scored over 180 points each).
In a crazy game that needed 4 overtimes for a winner to prevail, the visiting Chicago Bulls eventually pulled it out over the Atlanta Hawks in what was a scintillating tilt with almost too many notable plays to remember
The Atlanta Hawks came in short handed, with their young star forward John Collins out with flu-like symptoms, and left even more under-staffed, with both Omari Spellman and Kevin Huerter suffering injuries as well. Collins’ absence was a big one on paper, seeing how he had one of his career-best games last time these two met, finishing with 35.
After a close first half but a rough 3rd quarter, the Hawks cut it close with a great 4th quarter, outscoring the Bulls 40-29 in the final period.
Trae Young then hit an absolutely clutch shot that we’ll cover in-depth on the next slide. That shot was indicative of him being the best rookie over the past 2 months.
The marathon began after that, with the two young teams getting extremely tired as the 3 following OT frames combined with foul-outs and injuries causing the same cast of characters to play insane minutes.