The Atlanta Hawks did the unthinkable Monday night and pulled off potentially the comeback of the NBA season. Down huge to the best team in the NBA, in the Boston Celtics, Atlanta came all the back down from 30 points to capture a 120-118 victory at home. Per ESPN, this is the fourth-largest comeback in NBA history that resulted in a win for the trailing team.
This game started disastrous for Atlanta who trailed 44-22 after the first quarter and looked to be getting ran out of the building after one frame. Following an Al Horford jumper with 4:23 remaining in the second quarter, the Hawks were staring at a 30-point deficient. From there, the tides changed and Atlanta did everything they could to chip away at the Celtic-lead. The Hawks closed out the first-half with an 18-6 run, to cut the lead down to 74-56.
Atlanta kept up that momentum to start the third period, a huge point in this ballgame, as they started out with a 19-6 run to cut the lead to as little as three points, from that point forward it was a ballgame. Atlanta used an all-around team effort and clamped down defensively to crawl back into this one. They had six players score in double-digits, and the masterclass coaching job by Quin Snyder can not go unnoticed.
Fast forward to the final minutes of the fourth quarter and it was a wild one down to the wire. With the game tied at 109 apiece, the Celtics’, Jayson Tatum, had a thunderous dunk to put Boston up by two in what looked like a momentum-shifting play favoring Boston, yet the Hawks had an answer. A Bogdan Bogdanovic three put Atlanta up one, the Celtics, Jalen Brown, hit a two-pointer that put the Celtics up one, and that was followed by a Dejounte Murray reverse to the basket lay-up to put Atlanta up for good with one minute left in the fourth.
With the Hawks leading by one, Jalen Brown was forced into a tough three-point attempt that hit back iron and the rebound was corralled by Murray. This was the sequence of the game. Murray attempted a mid-range jumper and the rebound was tapped out by Clint Capela to a wide-open De’Andre Hunter, who canned a nail-in-the-coffin three-pointer, to give Atlanta four-point lead. It was important that Hunter did so, because with the offensive rebound and game clock under 14 seconds, the Hawks did NOT need to shoot the ball as the shot clock was turned off. Hunter sank the big shot and there needs to be no discourse of if he should have or should not have shot it.
Hunter finished with 24 points and 7 rebounds. Bogdanovic hit 4 three’s on his way to 22 points. Murray had 15 assists to go along with 19 points and 5 rebounds. Capela finished with another triple-double of 14 points and 12 rebounds, along with 2 blocks and was a force all night on the glass. Again, with mainstays like Jalen Johnson and Trae Young out, the Hawks had two role-players step up big again. Vit Krejci finished with 16 points and four three’s in 33 minutes of action, and Bruno Fernando finished with 13 points, 3 assists and 3 rebounds, carving himself out a potential permanent role off the bench with his play of late.
Atlanta will get a day’s rest until they host the Portland Trailblazers Wednesday and tango with the Celtics again on Thursday night. They improved to 32-39 on the season, firmly in grasp of the Eastern Conference’s final play-in spot.
