The shorthanded Hawks (14-16) lost to the even more shorthanded Magic, 104-98, Wednesday at State Farm Arena.
Next up, the Hawks will face the Sixers Thursday in Philadelphia on the second half of a back-to-back.
Below are some takeaways from the loss:
1. The Hawks’ good fortune of avoiding COVID-19 came to an end this week, with six players in health and safety protocols for Wednesday’s game: Trae Young, Clint Capela, Kevin Huerter, Danilo Gallinari, Lou Williams and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot. That’s four players who have been starting (Young, Capela, Huerter, Luwawu-Cabarrot) and two bench players in Williams and Gallinari (keep in mind, De’Andre Hunter and Solomon Hill are out with injuries, too). They started a lineup of Delon Wright, Skylar Mays, Cam Reddish, John Collins and Gorgui Dieng. But, the Magic (7-25) were even more short-handed, with six players out in health and safety protocols, in addition to missing leading scorer Cole Anthony (right ankle sprain) and leading rebounder Wendell Carter Jr. (right lower leg muscle strain), plus Michael Carter-Williams (left ankle injury recovery), Jalen Suggs (right thumb fracture), E’Twaun Moore (left knee sprain), Jonathan Isaac (left knee injury recovery) and Markelle Fultz (left knee injury recovery).
2. Missing Young and Huerter, and considering this marked Bogdan Bogdanovic’s first game back since Nov. 27, the Hawks’ offense was rudderless until a rally late in the third quarter. They entered the fourth down nine, attempting to climb out of a 20-point deficit, but as soon as their offense started clicking they couldn’t get a stop on defense, giving up 34 points in the fourth.
“How did you get that hole, it’s just not playing harder and it’s not executing, and you dig a hole for yourself,” Hawks coach Nate McMillan said. “When you get in a situation like that, you’ve got to stay together. You’ve got to stay together and you’ve got to work your way out of it, possession by possession, that’s on the defensive end of the floor as well as the offensive end of the floor. You’ve got to get stops and then offensively you need to be organized and execute your offense.”
3. Cam Reddish finished with a career-high 36 points, going 6-for-10 from 3-point range, adding five rebounds, four assists and two blocks. He and John Collins led the way offensively, with Collins adding 26 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double, plus two assists and two blocks. The Hawks struggled whenever Collins (who finished as a plus-7), in particular, went to the bench.
“It’s the same old story,” Collins said of the Hawks falling into a 20-point hole and not putting a complete game together. “We take bad shots, we don’t play defense, don’t rebound. We don’t. We lose. We’re losing. We’ve got to fight our way back into the game. It’s an uphill battle. It’s the same story. I could sit here and talk about it all day. But same stuff... We’ve just got to galvanize the group together and we’ve got to figure it out.”
4. This was Bogdanovic’s first game back in about a month, and he was limited to 16-20 minutes but ended up going a little over at 21:54, still limited to 4:32 in the fourth quarter. His shot wasn’t falling (2-9 FG, 1-5 from 3-point range,1-2 FT), finishing with six points, two rebounds, two assists, two steals and as a plus-12, but it’s good for the Hawks to get him back in the rotation. Bogdanovic said his ankle didn’t bother him during the game, another good sign.
5. The Hawks have now lost seven straight games at home, dating back to the loss to the Knicks Nov. 27. About to enter a road-heavy portion of their schedule, the Hawks will have one more opportunity to avoid going winless at State Farm Arena in December when they host the Bulls Dec. 27.
Stat of the game: 20 (what the deficit reached midway through the third quarter, which proved too large a hole to climb out of)
Star of the game: Franz Wagner (led the Magic with 25 points, adding two blocked shots)
Quotable: “That team was really playing in the same situation we were playing in, a lot of guys out, and I thought they had a better flow, better rhythm… They brought the intensity for 48 minutes tonight and pretty much controlled the game from start to finish.” (McMillan on the Magic overcoming the absences of key players to dominate Wednesday’s game)
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