Young's Career Night Helps Hawks Outlast Heat
The Hawks’ first game after the All-Star break could hardly have stood in starker contrast to their last one before it. Eight days after rolling over in Cleveland against the worst team in the Eastern Conference, Atlanta not only pushed the fourth-place Miami Heat to the wire, but held them off for a dramatic and intense win.
This was a Miami Heat basketball game -- tense, physical, and relentlessly arduous -- and yet it was Atlanta who commanded it down the stretch. Rather than allowing the Heat’s ferocity to break them, the Hawks responded by matching Miami’s intensity and execution, sustaining every blow and countering every run with a spurt of their own until they came away with a 127-124 win.
The Hawks (16-41) shot 44 percent from 3, 89 percent at the foul line, and nearly 70 percent at the rim, which helped balance out 16 turnovers and a bludgeoning by Miami on the offensive boards. Atlanta’s turnover percentage dropped 2.4 percentage points during the fourth quarter, and as a result its offensive efficiency jumped from 1.10 points per possession to over 1.18. After hitting a brief dry spell midway through the final quarter, the Hawks’ offense found its wings and closed the game on a 17-9 run over the final five minutes.
“We settled for a couple of shots and then we got back to our movement,” Pierce said. “I thought our guys were able to get through that stretch in the middle of the quarter and then finish strong.”
For all their hot shooting and tenacity, the Hawks could not have won without Trae Young’s heroics. The point guard was uncontainable all game, and his seven turnovers were the only blemish on an otherwise masterful performance. He turned in a career-high 50 points on 12-of-25 shooting to go with eight assists and a pair of steals. He hit eight of his 15 3-point tries and missed only the last of 19 free-throw attempts.
Young began the game fairly sloppily, but quickly settled into a rhythm that even the most active and physical Miami defenders couldn’t break. He had 13 points in the first quarter and 20 in the last, jolting Atlanta’s offense to life when it stagnated and overcoming fairly well-designed defensive schemes. After hitting several long off-the-bounce jumpers -- including two against Andre Iguodala and one over Bam Adebayo from the logo -- he expertly leveraged that threat into downhill drives and kickout passes to his teammates.
And yet, despite Young’s fourth-quarter brilliance, it was Atlanta’s two rookie wings who provided the most pivotal plays of crunch time. The Hawks closed the game with their “core five” of Young, Kevin Huerter, Cam Reddish, De’Andre Hunter, and John Collins, and Hunter and Reddish combined for 33 points on 13-of-24 shooting. Hunter drilled a pair of 3-pointers late in the game -- first to put the Hawks in front by a point and then to tie the score at 124. That set up perhaps the biggest play of Cam Reddish’s career to date: a steal from Goran Dragić that turned into an open-court dunk to break the tie and seal the win.
“I feel like I make a huge impact defensively, so I was just trying to be active on the ball and I was ready,” Reddish said. “It was perfect timing, really, and it worked out.”
Both rookies said they felt rested and energized after the All-Star break, and each showed signs of growth since the start of the season. Hunter made all three of his 3-pointers, grabbed six rebounds (many of which were contested), and played his most aggressive defensive game in weeks. Most surprisingly, he put down two (two!) forceful dunks in traffic off of assertive drives.
“That was another thing I talked about with the coaches, just trying to get to the basket using my size, using my strength,” Hunter said. “Trying to get free throws and things like that. So it was a mindset just to get downhill and try to create fouls.”
All season, the Hawks’ coaching staff has tried to coax more aggression and activity out of Hunter, who responds sporadically with games like Thursday's. Reddish, meanwhile, has rounded into a more judicious offensive player and Atlanta’s best defender. Against Miami, he played with as much control as he has in any game all season, attacking aggressively without committing a turnover. While he was credited for just one assist, Reddish was partially responsible for some of the Hawks’ best sequences of ball movement all night, including a series of swing passes that resulted in a Huerter 3-pointer.
“Obviously Trae has a huge night, but De’Andre hits a big 3, I thought Kevin had a big play, and then Cam,” Pierce said. “You really think about our core five, those young guys, you saw a little bit of each guy making an individual play that was tremendous tonight.”
That group outscored the Heat by 13 points in just over 11 minutes on Thursday, dominating on both ends of the court. Their collective length and activity created problems for Miami’s offense while their shooting stretched the Heat thin on defense. That is the promise of this nucleus, and while it still has a long way to go before it can claim to be on equal footing with a team like Miami, Thursday night showed just how dynamic the Hawks can be -- both individually and collectively -- at their best. This team, however, knows that its best is yet to come. “I think it was just a little sneak peek into the future,” Reddish said. “We’re always gonna have that one goal, and that’s just to win.”
