The Atlanta Hawks were in action in the NBA Cup on Friday night but came up short in a 125-117 road loss in overtime against the Chicago Bulls. Jalen Johnson registered a triple-double of 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists and CJ McCollum added 20 points off the bench. For the Bulls — without star rookie Caleb Wilson — Norman Powell led the way with 33 points with seven Bulls scoring in double-digits.
The Hawks would have entered this game as favorites, with the Bulls heading into this game on the back of an eight-game losing streak and looking for just their second win of the season. Without impressive rookie Caleb Wilson, the Bulls were missing talent that is sorely needed and handed the Hawks a significant advantage with his absence. In reality, that is not how it played out.
The Hawks’ time spent leading this game was extremely brief, and it was the Bulls who ran out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter behind 10 first quarter points from Powell. The key difference in this game began to become clear from the first quarter as the Hawks shot 2-of-8 from three-point range as the visitors’ struggles shooting the ball became more concrete in the second quarter. The Bulls, meanwhile, had no problem dispatching their three-pointers and began to run their lead to a game-high 18 points in the second quarter.
While the Hawks found some success in the paint — and this was how they began to reign in the Chicago lead — the three-point shooting story was becoming clear: 3-of-17 for Atlanta, while the Bulls shot 11-of-28 from three in the first half. The Hawks were, at times, settling for transition, pull-up threes from above the break but only shot 1-of-11 from such shots in this game:
Off of a miss, Nickeil Alexander-Walker pushes the ball up the floor and springs into a three-pointer, but cannot convert:
Off of the pass from Dyson Daniels, Johnson pulls up into a three-pointer which is missed:
On this attempt, the Hawks work themselves into a better opportunity from above the break, with Alexander-Walker finding Daniels, who finds Onyeka Okongwu all alone above the break, but the three is missed:
The Hawks would continue to strike out on these opportunities all night long, and relied on the inside scoring of Johnson, and some tough, crafty baskets from McCollum to keep the visitors in range, even tying the game in late stages of the third quarter.
The Bulls, however, quickly stretched their lead back to 10 in the fourth quarter, giving the Hawks a lot of work to do on the road. Even with 2:22 remaining the Hawks faced an uphill battle of seven points, but Okongwu and Johnson, tied the game.
Having not led the game since the first quarter — when the game was 7-6 — the Hawks had multiple opportunities to take a late lead in this game. The first comes in the form of the Hawks failing to secure a rebound off of a missed shot from Jalen Smith, with Johnson losing the rebound and the Bulls get the opportunity to call a timeout:
After a missed shot from Powell inside, the Hawks get a chance to get out in transition. Johnson is faced by Josh Giddey, and elects to pass the ball back out to the perimeter to Alexander-Walker, who is unable to hit the three-pointer:
I’m not sure Johnson realized how strong his advantage was here: no help was coming, Giddey was on his own, and it’s a one-on-one near the rim you would heavily back Johnson to score or draw a foul. Instead, he makes the unselfish play and finds Alexander-Walker, who continued his unfortunate shooting trend in this game at the wrong time.
The Hawks would get another chance as they advance the ball off of a timeout after another Bulls miss. Okongwu delivers a good pass to the cutting Aaron Wiggins, who is surely rim-side and through for a layup, but cannot complete the catch as the ball slips through his fingers and out of play:
Three differing chances for the Hawks to get/to score and all of them passed them by, and the game goes to overtime.
The Hawks would take their first lead since the first quarter, but it would not last, as Powell scored nine points in the overtime period to pull away from the Hawks before a dagger three Matas Buzelis dashes any hopes of a Hawks victory.
Postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder highlighted the start of the game as an issue for the Hawks and discussed how the Hawks’ shooting issues were exacerbated by the Bulls’ own good three-point shooting night.
“We didn’t play with the force at the beginning of the game,” said Snyder postgame. “That impacts our defense, it’s, kind of, the complimentary of basketball: how your defense affects your offense. When we’re not forceful defensively, or active, and we’re not running. We know the things we need to have in the front of our minds to focus on. When we don’t do that, we don’t play well. By the same token, we started to find that, 18 (points) down. When you’re not shooting the ball well — we had a bad shooting night, which is going to happen — those things become even more important. When your opponent is shooting the ball, it compounds itself. We take from it what we can, and there’s a lot here we can focus on.”
“We’ve got to come out with energy from the jump, we just didn’t do that,” added Jalen Johnson.
This game can be summed up by living by the three and dying by the three. The Hawks finished with 8-of-40 from three (20%) while the Bulls shot 20-of-50 from three (40%), and while there are other nuances of this game that did not go the Hawks’ way (which we’ll touch on in a moment), the game can really be summed up as simply as that. If you hit eight threes while your opponent hits 20 (a 60-24 point disparity) it’s difficult to win games consistently. The fact the Hawks almost did, speaks to the nature of the Bulls’ season (allowing Jalen Smith to 15 shots and 1-of-6 from three is something the Bulls allowed to happen, for some reason).
From the Hawks’ side, it was another difficult night shooting the three from Alexander-Walker, who shot 1-of-11 from three, and 6-of-19 from the field — it just wasn’t his night, and there’s been a couple of those this season where it becomes evident it may not be his night from three and he ends up with a poor percentage on a high volume. It was the same story across the board: reliable three-point shooters for the Hawks couldn’t get their shots to fall. Okongwu shot 2-of-7 from three, while Aaron Wiggins shot 1-of-6 from distance.
Turnovers were also a key feature in this game, with the Hawks committing 17 in total, off of which the Bulls scored 20 points. These turnovers, as Snyder often references along with getting stops, impact the Hawks’ ability to establish their identity: it’s key for Atlanta to get out on the run in transition/off of a miss and when the Hawks are committing turnovers this impacts the Hawks significantly.
“It’s hard to stop the ball when you turn the ball over,” said CJ McCollum postgame.
Chicago turnovers were also how the Hawks remained in this game, scoring 34 points off of the Bulls’ 24 turnovers — without these, the Hawks would not have been able to close the margin as they did, with Johnson and McCollum credited for 10 points apiece off of Chicago turnovers.
In addition, when the Hawks are off form from three, they are at least able to rack up points in the paint — many of which came off of turnovers — scoring 66 points in the paint, with Johnson accounting for 20 of these. Johnson finished with 27 points on 11-of-26 shooting from the field to go with his triple-double.
The Hawks were chasing the game for much of the affair, but Snyder didn’t believe that this pursuit tired the Hawks physically.
“I didn’t feel like we were tired,” said Snyder. “Powell hit some tough shots in the overtime which I thought we defended pretty well. We made a couple of adjustments that our guys executed that I thought were really good. You put yourself in a position where you’ve got to make a lot of plays. We made enough to go to get where we were, but the game goes back and forth, and it went back one too many times.”
There’s no doubt the Hawks left themselves with a lot of work to do, both in the first half and in the fourth quarter when they trailed by double-digits. But they had their chances in regulation, and it slipped through their fingers (well, quite literally in Wiggins’ case). In overtime, the quality of Powell (33 points on 12-of-29 shooting) shone through as he seized the game, with enough support from the rest to see the Bulls through.
It’s a poor loss for the Hawks, who would have won this game had they hit any number of their 26 missed threes in regulation. They were also off since Monday, while the Bulls were in action on Wednesday, so their flat start to the game looks worse with context. In the context of the NBA Cup, the Hawks still have a positive point differential and are still in play to advance but cannot afford another loss such as this.
The Hawks (7-6) are back in action on Sunday when they will encounter another team on the road desperate for victory: the 1-12 Milwaukee Bucks.
Until next time!
