Good, bad and ugly from Hawks’ collapse against Trail Blazers on Thursday

The Hawks ended their trip out west not with a bang but with very much a whimper. On Thursday, the Hawks lost 117-101 to the Trail Blazers at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.

“When your team, in-season, is evolving, it affects your performance,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder told reporters after the game. “And, I think at that point, hopefully things start to normalize. And from that point, you know, you take some steps, but we can look at the tape and see the things, I think it’ll confirm where we need to be better.”

Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly from the Hawks’ loss:

The good

Hawks center Onyeka Okongwu was active after a poor outing in Los Angeles against the Lakers. The 25-year-old had 26 points, nine rebounds, three steals and one block as he tried get the Hawks going.

In a two-minute stretch at the end of the first half, Okongwu scored eight of the Hawks’ 10 points. It allowed the Hawks to go into the locker room at halftime with a two-point lead after they trailed the Blazers by as many as 11 in the first half.

The bad

The Hawks have now lost three consecutive games to the Trail Blazers and have not won a game in Portland since Feb. 13, 2017.

Like their past three matchups in Portland, the Hawks simply fell apart late in the game Thursday. The Hawks led the Trail Blazers by seven with 15 minutes to play in the game.

But they allowed a three-minute 18-2 run spanning the end of the third quarter to three minutes into the fourth. They got sloppy, allowing the Blazers to force them into rushed shots, going 1-of-7 overall in the first four minutes of the fourth.

On top of that, the Hawks simply couldn’t stop the Blazers.

“I think even prior to that, the end of the third, we didn’t finish the quarter as well,” Snyder said. “Fouled, turnover, buckets, the other way that impacted us at the end of the third, same thing happened (to start the fourth).”

The ugly

The Hawks have been one of the better teams in the NBA when it comes to taking care of the basketball. They rank fifth in the NBA in average turnovers per game.

But the Hawks did not have that ball security, nor could they put their stamp on defensive possessions. They gave up 28 points off 18 turnovers, while also spotting the Trail Blazers 20 points off 16 offensive rebounds.