Shorthanded Hawks lose to Bulls, drop 10th game in a row

1. Without Young (28.5 points, 8.3 assists per game), who sprained his right ankle late in the first half of Friday’s loss to the Bucks, the Hawks were down their main playmaker and leading scorer. Parker (right shoulder impingement) was out as well, so the Hawks were missing quite a bit of production (Parker averages 15.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game) and it showed. It’s not unusual for the Hawks to struggle on defense, but without Young and Parker, they also struggled on offense, going scoreless from the 7:09 mark in the fourth quarter until the 2:16 mark (they couldn’t get anything going in the fourth and were outscored 33-16 to round out the loss). All in all, the Hawks shot 37.2% from the field to the Bulls’ 49.4%. “Head of the snake is out,” John Collins said of missing Young. “He gets us into our sets, he brings that pop, that swagger. Missed him tonight, for sure. It definitely affects us when you take out our primary ball-handler and you put guys who have to play out of position, it’s tough. ... It’s a lot of confusion, but it’s part of the NBA. It’s on us to be professionals and try to move forward.” In Young’s stead, Cam Reddish started and tallied six assists but couldn’t get shots to fall, adding two points.

2. With no Young or Parker and with De’Andre Hunter (2-for-9, six points) and Kevin Huerter (2-for-12, six points, four assists) unable to find a rhythm, the Hawks fed the ball to Collins, who scored 16 points in the second quarter and led the team in scoring with 34 points and eight rebounds, adding two assists and three blocks. “He was big,” Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce said. “For him to take 26 shots showed that he had a mentality that he wanted to do more. He wanted to do more and he tried to do more and he got himself caught a couple times, but he also scored and played effectively.” Alex Len added 10 points, but with no other player adding more than six points, the Hawks didn’t have balanced scoring like the Bulls, who had six players score in double-digits.

3. With Saturday’s loss, the Hawks still have yet to register their first win of the season on the second night of a back-to-back. They’ve now lost seven out of seven games when playing their second night in a row (the first six were Oct. 29 in Miami, Nov. 6 vs. Chicago, Nov. 17 at the Lakers, Nov. 23 vs. Toronto, Nov. 30 in Houston and Dec. 11 in Chicago). When asked about the most challenging part of back-to-backs, Pierce pointed to the Hawks’ depth — in Saturday’s loss, depth became an issue, as the team was extra shorthanded later in the game. Evan Turner (who was listed with a left hamstring strain on the injury report) couldn’t finish the game and Chandler Parsons, who has struggled with knee issues, wasn’t an option either, according to Pierce, which further limited the Hawks when other players had hit a wall. “We can’t go to the well, we can’t go to some other guys and try and get that depth for guys that are struggling, so our young guys have to stay out there and they have to kind of fight through it, and I don’t mind that,” Pierce said. “I think this is part of their growth and their learning curve. Don’t look over your shoulder, find a way to get through it.”

4. Struggling on both ends of the floor, the Hawks got off to a bleak start, trailing 35-19 after the first quarter. The Bulls grabbed 16 rebounds to the Hawks’ four and shot 70% from the field (14-for-20) in the first, responding to the Hawks scoring the first four points of the game with a 14-0 run. In the first half, Hawks starters outside of Collins went 3-for-16 from the field, with the Hawks trailing by 21.

5. For the second time this season, the Hawks find themselves on a 10-game losing streak (they haven’t registered a win since a Dec. 8 victory in Charlotte). The first streak began Nov. 14 in Phoenix and ended with a win vs. Golden State Dec. 2. “Just try to not look at the 10 losses in a row,” Collins, in his third year, said of what he tells the Hawks’ younger players. “You obviously see it and it is what it is, but like I said you have to be professionals and just learn how to move on and compete. They know they’re going to be here for the future, our young guys, that is ... it’s all on me and the older guys to just implement to them that they have a future in this league and this is not the end of the world.”

By the Numbers 

25 (the amount of fast-break points the Bulls tallied)

Quotable 

“Another back-to-back where we just didn’t have it, and again, it’s an offensive thing. I think it’s a way of trying to figure out how to be mentally tough or mentally stronger. Shots weren’t falling.” (Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce on the loss)