Hawks Drop Fourth Straight in Brooklyn

The Hawks dropped their fourth consecutive game on Sunday night, losing 108-86 to the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets controlled the game from the start, jumping out to a 20-point lead before the Hawks could even find their bearings, and without Trae Young (sore hamstring), Atlanta simply didn’t have the firepower or command to claw back into it.

The Hawks struggled to create good looks against Brooklyn’s conservative defense and didn’t convert the few open shots they did get. They scored just 0.80 points per possession while shooting just 33 percent from the field and 25 percent from 3-point range. Only 12 of Atlanta’s 48 3-point attempts found the bottom of the rim. A 16-point first quarter for the Hawks set a discouraging tone for the rest of the game, and Atlanta never broke out of the rut.

“We didn’t have any pop in terms of creating good shots and knocking those down when you get them,” Lloyd Pierce said. “We had a couple of those early and they just didn’t go down for us, and now we’re in a pretty big hole.”

Lloyd Pierce on Cam Reddish's defense:

"If there's anything that he's done extremely well this season, it's his ability to guard... He's been on the ball. He's been off the ball. He's been on point guards. He's been on 2-guards. We've seen him do that." pic.twitter.com/TplkeiXDCd
— Bally Sports: Hawks (@HawksOnBally) January 13, 2020

Cam Reddish and DeAndre’ Bembry (12 points, three assists, four steals) were the team’s lone bright spots. Reddish was aggressive – at times to a fault – and looked agile on both ends. He snatched five steals and scored 20 points, forced a few contested shots but made enough to justify the confidence. “He’s the one guy that had a little momentum going and we tried to use it,” Pierce said. “He can get to the rim, and when he wants to attack like that he can get to the rim and finish. But he’s getting the same shots. I think the more work he continues to put in, the more we keep him on the floor, you’re gonna see games like this hopefully more often than not.”

No other Hawk asserted himself in the run of play. Very few of John Collins’ many shot attempts actually fell, while Kevin Huerter and De’Andre Hunter never quite settled into the game (Hunter has been dealing with a nagging injury and was effectively shut down after just 17 minutes tonight). Brandon Goodwin, starting in place of the injured Young, is still a backup point guard at this level. Pierce never seemed to settle on a lineup he really trusted.

That gave Brooklyn all the cushion it needed to separate early. In his first game since November 14, Kyrie Irving scored an effortless 21 points on a dazzling 10-of-11 from the field in just 20 minutes. Jarrett Allen and DeAndre Jordan, then, had easy jobs with the Hawks preoccupied with Irving’s every spin and crossover. They hung around outside the action until plays found their way to them, and finished with 23 points and 20 rebounds between them.

“They fed off of Kyrie being back and had some great momentum in that first quarter,” Pierce said. “We were stuck in sand, stuck in cement, just trying to move and being late to everything.”

The Nets’ offense wasn’t particularly efficient on its own (0.99 points per possession), but a 59.2 effective field goal percentage and 21 percent free-throw rate allowed them to salvage enough possessions to outscore Atlanta’s punchless outfit. Nearly half of Brooklyn’s shots came at the rim, where it shot 71 percent. Brooklyn also found pay dirt in transition, where they produced over 1.4 points per play over the course of the game.

Atlanta is now 0-3 against the Nets this year, with the final meeting of the season series in late February. The Hawks will return home to host the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday as they hit the halfway point of the season.