What We Learned From Atlanta's 136-105 Loss to the Los Angeles Lakers
After turning in arguably their best performance of the season in Los Angeles against the Clippers on Sunday night, Atlanta turned in arguably its worst performance of the season on Monday night in Los Angeles vs the Lakers. The Hawks were on the second night of a back-to-back while facing a rested Lakers team but losing by 30+ points and the game being largely noncompetitive in the second half was pretty surprising.
The Hawks still hold on to the No. 10 spot in the Eastern Conference and received important injury news yesterday with the return of Onyeka Okongwu. Atlanta leads the Brooklyn Nets by four games for the last play-in spot and could be getting healthier.
So what did we learn last night?
1. This might have been the Hawks's worst defense performance of the season
One of the few things the Hawks have done pretty well since Trae Young went down was play defense. They have taken advantage of some short-handed teams, but they played excellent defense against the Clippers on Sunday night and the Clippers had all of their regular starters in.
The defensive performance last night was atrocious and I am being nice. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Hawks were allowing 144 points per 100 possessions (1st percentile), a 71.1 effective field goal percentage (1st percentile), and an 8% turnover percentage (6th percentile). The Hawks have had one of the worst defenses in the league all year, but they had gotten better over the last three weeks, but they all came crashing down last night.
The Lakers finished the game shooting 58% from the field and 42% from three. LeBron James finished with 25 points, seven rebounds, and 10 assists, Anthony Davis had 22 points, 15 rebounds, and six assists, and D'Angelo Russell led all scorers with 27 points and 10 assists.
Maybe it was just a luck night for the Lakers, but the Hawks have to defend better than that.
2. Jalen Johnson had one of the best dunks of the year
It was a great night to have a highlight dunk in the NBA. I'm pretty sure everyone has seen the Anthony Edwards dunk over John Collins, but Jalen Johnson had a great dunk of his own over Lakers guard Austin Reaves last night.
Reaves had a pretty funny reaction to it after the game as well:
