Paul Millsap just missed.
The Hawks forward let a potential game-winning 16-footer fly with 1.5 seconds left only to watch it roll off the rim and harmlessly to the floor as the final buzzer sounded.
Jazz 97, Hawks 96.
“I got the look I wanted,” Millsap said after the Hawks’ third home loss on Sunday night. “I just didn’t go in, man. Guess it wasn’t meant to be. We can’t put ourselves in those situations. When we do, got to knock that shot down.”
The Hawks trailed the Jazz by seven points, 95-88, with 2:20 remaining. They pulled to within a point, 97-96 after Al Horford hit the second of two corner 3-pointers with under two minutes remaining. There was a chance to win the game when Thabo Sefolosha pulled down the rebound of a Derrick Favors miss with 10.9 seconds left.
Dennis Schroder took the ball and raced up court. When he was met by Jazz center Rudy Gobert, coach Mike Budenholzer called timeout. The coach wanted to push an advantage.
“Lots of time if you can get a stop you may have an advantage, you have them scrambling, them out of kilter,” Budenholzer said. “So I think we like to take that look. Gobert did a pretty good job of keeping Dennis bottled up on the sideline. Dennis didn’t get any initial thrust or penetration. At that point, just felt like it was the right thing to get a timeout and get something that we felt good about as far as a shot.”
The Hawks had several options on the in-bounds play. The end result was Millsap with the final look after he had already scored a game-high 28 points. He missed.
“Paul got a great look,” Budenholzer said. “We’ll take that look anytime. The execution down the stretch was good.”
