It came down to the final seconds, but the Hawks (17-41) came away with a 111-107 win vs. the Mavericks (34-23) Saturday night at State Farm Arena.
Below are some takeaways from the win:
1. Fans will have to wait until next season for a potential Luka Doncic-Trae Young matchup. Once again, both Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, the Mavericks' top scorers, weren't available to play against the Hawks (both also sat out the Hawks' 123-100 loss to the Mavericks on Feb. 1). On the second night of a back-to-back, Doncic was out with "right ankle soreness" and Porzingis was out recovering from a left knee injury, according to the Mavericks' injury report. Both had double-doubles in Dallas' win in Orlando on Friday, with Doncic contributing 33 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists and Porzingis adding 24 points and 10 rebounds. Young on not getting to face Doncic: "Obviously, I love to play against the best players in our league, and Luka's up there as one of our best players. For me, it's tough not getting to play against him. But for him, I want him to get healthy, I want Kristaps to get healthy."
2. After a lethargic start, the Hawks trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half and were down nine entering the fourth quarter. It wasn't until the 5:24 mark of the fourth that they took their first lead of the game, at 96-95 after a Dewayne Dedmon putback, having outscored the Mavericks 19-9 to start the fourth. Two 3-pointers by Young tied the score at 102-102 with three minutes to go, and his 3 with 1:53 left put the Hawks up 105-104. After getting off to a slow start, with eight points in the first half, he scored 13 in the fourth to help the Hawks to a win (he went 3-for-8 from 3-point range, with all three of those coming in the fourth). Things opened up for him as the game went on, particularly when Mavericks bigs got in foul trouble: "They stopped trapping so hard, and I was able to get into my rhythm, get downhill, get some floaters, get some layups to go, and then obviously late in the fourth I was able to get my shot going," Young said.
3. There was controversy on one of the final plays of the game, when John Collins tipped in a layup by Young that was blocked by Dorian Finney-Smith, which put the Hawks up by four with 8.4 seconds to go. According to crew chief Rodney Mott, the original call on the floor was a goaltend, but the play was reviewed, and the basket was allowed: "The ball hit the rim, so it was deemed an inadvertent whistle because it was ruled a good block. By rule, it's an inadvertent whistle. It's Rule Two. Because he (Collins) was in his shooting motion when my whistle blew, it's deemed a continuation, so therefore, the basket counts."
4. Collins had a season-high and career-high tying 35 points (13-18 FG, 3-3 from 3-point range, 6-9 FT) in the win, to go with 17 rebounds (including five offensive boards) and two blocked shots. "I feel I definitely took advantage of the mismatches I had tonight. ... I can crash the glass really well, so I took advantage of that and made the most out of it."
5. The Hawks have won six of their past seven home games, having beaten the Clippers, Wizards, 76ers, Knicks, Heat and now the Mavericks since Jan. 22, their lone home loss over that stretch coming against the Celtics on Feb. 3.
By the Numbers
8-for-9 (a career-high in free throws for rookie Cam Reddish, who played aggressively and added three steals to his 20 points)
Quotable
“We keep doing that, don’t we? We keep digging ourselves in these holes and then finding a way to fight back in the game. That’s something we’ve got to get better at.”
-- Young on the Hawks getting down early
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