The Atlanta Hawks got absolutely blown out by the Toronto Raptors in their first game of the season. They ran a 10-man rotation, but efficiency was a problem. They gave up 12 offensive rebounds, and Toronto shot lights out from the field. Trae Young put it best after the game: Nothing went well for Atlanta on Wednesday night.
"I don't think there's too many positives you can take from tonight," Young said via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. "It's embarrassing the way we started it. A lot of it comes from the preseason, obviously it carried over, we didn't play all five of us. You could tell by the continuity we had out there, it wasn't right. But the cream always rises to the top. We got some time to make it up and got to get going."
The Hawks have plenty of time to figure it out, but Opening Night was a mess.
What happened to Hawks on Opening Night?
As Young mentioned, there weren’t any positives to take away from the Hawks’ first game of the season. Almost everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
The most notable issue that Atlanta dealt with was one they are far too used to at this point: Defense. They gave up 138 points to a Raptors team that ranked 26th in the NBA last season on that end of the court.
Seven different Raptors players cracked double digits, led by RJ Barrett, who put up 25 points. Atlanta also gave up 34 fast break points and an overwhelming 86 points in the paint to Toronto. It was a disaster on the defensive end.
The Hawks’ moves this summer were seemingly with the defensive side of the ball in mind. Kristaps Porzingis is an impressive interior defender, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker is a plus on that end. But in the opener, it didn’t matter.
In fact, Porzingis and Onyeka Okongwu got absolutely torched in the paint. Toronto scoring 86 points in the paint may end up being the worst defensive showing by Atlanta in the paint all season. And it was only Game 1.
The offensive end wasn’t great for Atlanta, either. They only shot 10-of-35 (28.6%) from beyond the three-point arc. The Hawks even took 37 free throws, but it wasn’t even close to enough to keep up with how great the Raptors were on Wednesday night.
Young is right, the Hawks have a lot to figure out as the season rolls on.