Hawks fall in rematch to Bulls, drop fourth straight game

The Hawks gave away their rematch against the Bulls on Tuesday night at State Farm Arena. The Bulls handed the Hawks a 126-123 loss, their fourth straight.

The Hawks led by 13 points heading into the fourth quarter, but the Bulls rattled off six straight points, with Nikola Vucevic’s jumper over Onyeka Okongwu cutting the Hawks lead to five with 9:08 to play.

The Bulls’ 15-2 run allowed them to take a 122-119 lead with 39.8 to play that forced the Hawks to call timeout.

Though the Hawks eventually tied the game at 123 with 1.9 to play, they could not string together defensive stops without fouling.

“He grabbed his arm and pulled him down,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said of the foul called on Zaccharie Risacher that sent Coby White to the free throw line with 1.9 seconds to play. “You guys can see it. It’s not hard to see. I don’t know what you can do about that, but it’s unfortunate. You don’t want the game to be won or lost over a call like that.

“I’m sure they’ll have a two-minute report and presumably they’ll talk about it. He just grabbed his arm and pulled him into him. We put ourselves in a position where that can happen. You want to not be in position we have to get a stop on the last possession.”

Quick stats: Hawks Jalen Johnson finished with 24 points, nine rebounds and 10 assists. Guard Trae Young reached a double-double with 3:01 remaining in the third quarter. He finished with 22 points and 15 assists.

Key moment

Things got heated in Tuesday night’s action during a dead ball. Johnson had drawn a foul off Bulls forward Matas Buzelis. The Bulls forward had dunked the ball on Luke Kennard on the previous end and said something to Johnson. So the Hawks forward looked to return the favor.

As Johnson waited to take his free throw, Young and Bulls guard Ayo Dosunmu got into an altercation. Young had patted Dosunmu on his butt as he walked away and the Bulls guard walked back. Dosunmu got in Young’s face and the Hawks bench emptied.

Highlight play

Hawks rookie big Asa Newell had a 44-second stretch in the second quarter where he did a little bit of everything.

Newell kicked it off by tipping the ball away from Bulls guard Coby White to center Nikola Vucevic at the top of the key. He followed through and got an easy dunk in transition on the other end.

Then on the next possession, the Hawks rotated the ball around the perimeter, where it found Newell front of the Bulls bench.

What they said

“We stopped running. We stopped putting pressure on them. That’s how we built the lead. I don’t think our defense just let us down, but it wasn’t as good as it needed to be, even when we did get stopped, makes it just stopped having that discipline to run the court.” -- Snyder on the Hawks giving up a double-digit lead.

“You got to give them a little credit for that, for sure. But I felt like most of it was on us. And, a lot of guys are still trying to figure out what we should do later in the game. It’s just my third game back. So we’re, we’re trying to figure out how to execute down the stretch, whether it’s me or Jalen, or just how we can create an advantage or who got the ball.” -- Young on how the Hawks can execute better down the stretch.

“As a team, we all should say it should never come to a call. And it comes down to like, how do we do that? Like, how do I do better? How do I maybe get a better? One out of the shots I took 19, how many of the 19 were good? Or some that we will live with? I think that’s more important than that one play.” -- Nickeil Alexander-Walker on what the team said to Risacher after the final calls.