Hawks fall apart in the fourth in loss to Trail Blazers
The Hawks split their West Coast road trip after dropping their Thursday night matchup to the Trail Blazers. Fans who stayed up past midnight watched as the Hawks fell to the Trail Blazers 117-101.
The Hawks have not won at the Moda Center since Feb. 13, 2017, with Thursday’s loss extending their losing streak in Portland to nine straight games.
Quick stats: Onyeka Okongwu scored 26 points and had nine rebounds. CJ McCollum scored 20 points off the bench. Jalen Johnson had 12 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
Turning point
The Hawks couldn’t buy a bucket to open the final quarter. The Trail Blazers had most of the offensive momentum after Rayan Rupert hit a buzzer-beater 3 at the end of the third.
Portland held the Hawks to 1-of-9 shooting from the floor in the first four minutes of the fourth. The Trail Blazers forced the Hawks to rush their shots, attempting them off-balance from deep. It led to long rebounds that the Trail Blazers beat them to, before leaking out for buckets on the other end.
The Trail Blazers built a 103-89 lead, off a Duop Reath 3. It capped off a three-minute, 18-2 run that began after that Rupert buzzer-beater.
Highlight play
With 9:37 to play in the first quarter, Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker forced Trail Blazers guard Shaedon Sharpe into a bottleneck. As Sharpe looked for the blow-by, Alexander-Walker tapped the ball out of Sharpe’s dribble and Daniels jumped ahead and went up for a dunk.
What they said
“But as much as anything, you know, I think we gave up 48 points off turnovers and second chance points, and that’s almost pushing half their points of our defensive rebounding and taking care of the ball. And they give them credit, they’re aggressive defensively. They’re long. They put a lot of pressure on you handle the ball, but those two areas of the game, you know, it’s tough to overcome that.” -- Hawks coach Quin Snyder on what went wrong in the fourth.
Up next
The Hawks return home to State Farm Arena on Saturday to host the Celtics for the first of four meetings.
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