With February nigh, the 47th game of the season offered a glimmer of hope.
With all of their core healthy to play for the first time since November, the Hawks looked like a competent and even successful basketball team.
Seven players scored in double figures. Effective defense and fresh legs generated 26 fast-break points. The lapses that have plagued this team never surfaced. The Hawks made it through the entire fourth quarter without a moment of doubt or panic as they seized a 138-122 rout over a weary Lakers team Tuesday night at State Farm Arena.
“It’s always nice when you don’t have to sweat it out at the end,” Hawks guard Trae Young said. “But I think (Tuesday), it was just us making shots. Sometimes the difference in wins and losses is making or missing shots.”
Forward De’Andre Hunter made his first appearance since Dec. 20, returning from an inflamed knee. It provided coach Quin Snyder with the full assortment of his top eight players for the first time since late November and a reminder of what the Hawks can be.
“I think we’re a really good team when we’re healthy,” Hunter said. “Injuries definitely don’t help any team, especially us. Having the guys out there and guys who are used to playing and guys who are used to certain rotations – just having those guys out there makes everyone else more comfortable in their role and helps everyone play better.”
For the Hawks, it is the most hopeful interpretation of Tuesday’s game. Back on Nov. 25, they improved to 8-7 after destroying Washington with the top eight – guards Dejounte Murray, Bogdan Bogdanovic and Young, forwards Jalen Johnson, Saddiq Bey and Hunter and centers Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu – all playing.
Since then, primarily with the prolonged absences of Hunter (knee and quad tendon) and Johnson (fractured wrist), they were 11-20 prior to Tuesday’s game. Hunter, the team’s best defender, made a clear impact on the defensive end in his 16 minutes. He rotated on help defense, challenged shots and repeatedly put himself in the right place to make plays. On a team that has at times been atrocious on defense – the Hawks started the night second to last in the league in points allowed per game at 123.3 – he was a most welcome addition.
Credit: Jason Getz
Credit: Jason Getz
But another consideration is that the Lakers, despite their fancy in-season tournament title, don’t look like much of a threat to anyone and were playing the trailing end of a back-to-back. (They are now 24-25)
“We knew they played last night so we knew we needed to get up and down and run and play in transition and play fast,” Young said. “We knew as the game would go on, they would tire down. That’s just what they did.”
That included the most notable guest of the night. LeBron James was 7-for-17 from the field and 4-for-9 from the free-throw line, though he did secure nine rebounds and eight assists. In what may prove to be his final visit to State Farm Arena, he showed off flashes of his greatness, most prominently an explosive attack on the basket for an alley-oop dunk that elicited the biggest reaction from the many James fans in attendance, but was often mortal. His beard flecked with gray, his ankle not fully healthy and his body recovering from a Monday night game in Houston, the 39-year-old James was short on a seemingly easy layup, had the ball snatched off his person (prompting unanswered pleas for help from the referees) and tossed up a jumper that glanced off the backboard and failed to draw iron.
Towards the end of the game, he was serenaded with a most humbling and irrefutable chant from Hawks diehards: “You are old!”
“I think he was tired,” Hunter said of the legendary James. “I think that’s the biggest thing. It didn’t really seem like he had as much energy out there, wasn’t shooting as much. I think that’s it.”
(It was evidently Take Down a Blueblood night in Atlanta. As the Hawks were humbling James and the many-titled Lakers, Georgia Tech was treating No. 3 North Carolina with similar contempt a couple miles north at McCamish Pavilion, scoring a 74-73 upset to match its defeat of top-10 Duke in December.)
Snyder was asked if the Hawks had maybe not turned a corner, but possibly were turning a corner. With his team’s record at 20-27 after back-to-back wins, Snyder declined to entertain usage of any possible tenses.
“I hesitate, whether it’s turned or turning,” Snyder said. “We played well. We need to keep playing well.”
And that might be the appropriate response for this evening. With the full complement available, the Hawks could spread minutes and scoring. Hunter gave the team more defensive capability. They didn’t quite shut down the Lakers, who are an average offensive team, were shorthanded (forward Anthony Davis was out) and heavy-legged, but at least no one scored 73 points on them, as Luka Doncic did two games ago.
Onto game 48.
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