The Atlanta Hawks eked out a victory on Sunday evening, beating the Dallas Mavericks in overtime by a final score of 132-130 to retain control of the 8th-seed in the Eastern Conference playoff race as we enter the final week of the ‘22-23 regular season.
After struggling from beyond the arc against the Nets on Friday night, Atlanta caught fire from three-point land in the first quarter, going 6/9 from beyond the arc to take a 37-29 lead into the second period. The Hawks’ bench was a perfect 4/4 from three in the opening frame, with Bogdan Bogdanovic, A.J. Griffin and Jalen Johnson all getting in on the action. After a back-and-forth 2nd quarter, the Hawks held a 70-66 lead at the halftime break.
After a 21-10 run over the first 6 minutes of the second half gave Atlanta a 15-point cushion, the Hawks shot just 1-13 over the back half of the quarter, allowing Dallas to vaporize their lead, setting the stage for a wire-to-wire finish at State Farm Arena. Despite the Hawks never ceding the lead in the 4th quarter, they never led by more than 7 points with Dallas answering every punch thrown by the home side. Kyrie Irving was unstoppable in the 4th quarter, going deep into his bag to pull out 14 points on 4-5 shooting (including a perfect 6-6 at the free-throw line) in the final frame.
After a Saddiq Bey/Clint Capela tip-in put the Hawks up 123-121 with 21 seconds left to play, they had a chance to seal the victory with a stop on the defensive end of the floor. On Dallas’ final possession, the Hawks did a good job forcing the ball out of Luka Doncic’s hands. Seeing a double team, Doncic snapped the ball across the floor to Christian Wood who had an open look for three on the weak-side. With John Collins racing over to contest the shot, Wood pump-faked and drove past Collins to the hoop. Seeing Collins get beat, Clint Capela raced over to contest Wood at the basket – doing his best to plant his feet and keep his arms vertical, however his efforts were in vain as the refs whistled Capela for a foul with 1.2 seconds remaining in the ball game. I’ve linked the play here so you can watch it for yourself, but it looked like this one could have been called a charge.
Believe it or not, this was not the last piece of drama in this game. After knocking down the first free-throw to cut Atlanta’s lead to 1, Christian Wood missed the 2nd free-throw that would’ve tied the game. After a scuffle for the rebound, the ball was batted out of play by the Hawks, giving Dallas a chance to win the game with 0.4 seconds left on the game clock. On the inbounds play, Doncic looped a pass towards Javale McGee at the basket and Clint Capela, thrown off for a split-second by a Kyrie Irving screen, slapped McGee on the arm – sending him to the line with a chance to give Dallas the lead. While there could be some debate about the foul call that sent Christian Wood to the line less than a second of game-time earlier, there’s little doubt that Capela impacted McGee’s ability to catch the ball on the inbounds play (linked here). Fortunately for the Hawks, McGee split the pair at the free-throw line and with Atlanta unable to get a shot-off on their final possession, this game went to overtime.
Overtime was scrappy, with neither side able to take control of the game. With 6.7 seconds left and the two sides all tied up at 130, Atlanta had the ball with a chance to take the lead. After receiving the ball in the back-court, Young drew a fortunate whistle on Irving, sending him to the line with 1.8 seconds remaining. After the game, Young admitted that the foul call on Irving was “kind of a lucky play for us and unlucky for them”, saying “I just got into Kyrie’s way”. Nonetheless, Young knocked down both free-throws, Luka Doncic (just) missed his three-point prayer at the end of the period, and the Hawks escaped with a 132-130 victory.
For Dallas, Kyrie Irving led the team in scoring with 41 points on a 16-27 shooting night. Luka Doncic had an uncharacteristic shooting night, going just 8-21 from the floor (3-12 from three) though he still managed to score 22 points and had 7 assists and 7 rebounds as well. Christian Wood contributed an 18-point 11-rebound double-double. Dallas entered the game 3rd in three-point shooting frequency and 8th in three-point shooting accuracy, per cleaningtheglass, but struggled mightily from the perimeter in this one, going just 10-38 from beyond the arc – a big factor in their loss tonight.
For the Hawks, 7 players reached double figures though Dejounte Murray and Trae Young led the way with 25 and 24 points respectively, and it is worth noting Young finished with 12 assists. After going 0-6 from three on Friday night against the Nets, John Collins had a nice bounce back performance, nailing 4 of his 6 looks from downtown tonight en route to an 18-point performance. Saddiq Bey, still starting for the injured De’Andre Hunter, added 13 points and 8 rebounds. Bogdan Bogdanovic nailed 4 triples and finished with 16 points. Clint Capela had a solid game – save for the two fouls at the end of regulation – finishing with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Onyeka Okongwu added 14 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks in 20 minutes. Jalen Johnson continued to flash his playmaking chops, finishing with 5 assists to go along with 4 points and 5 rebounds. A.J. Griffin played just 13 minutes tonight and finished with 3 points, going 1/3 from the perimeter.
Atlanta’s next game is on Tuesday night when they will take on the Chicago Bulls on the road in what will be another pivotal matchup for the Eastern Conference Play-In race. Chicago is currently in 10th place, but are just one game behind the Hawks and Raptors (who are even on record, with Atlanta holding the tie-break) so expect this to be another tightly contested matchup. Tipoff for that one is at 8pm from the United Center.
‘Till next time… Go Hawks!
