Official Game Thread: Trail Blazers at Hawks

[lethalweapon3]

“Geaux Tigers! Say, Freshman, what’s your name, again?”

 

He was well on his way to a career-high scoring day in the first half, the guard leading the home team to a nearly 20-point halftime lead over an opponent missing multiple stars on the back end of a back-to-back. But soon, he and his team would find themselves knocked back on their heels. Their road-weary foes still scrambled to narrow the margin to single digits in the fourth quarter. His team’s potential Play-In status was in peril.

Luckily for the Portland Trail Blazers, and the Atlanta Hawks by extension, Josh Hart wasn’t having it. Not on this day.

The burly guard and fifth-year pro’s and-one four-point play closed out Saturday’s career-best outing at 44 points. Hart (6-for-9 on threes, team-highs of 4 steals and 6 assists) toiled in tandem with fellows named Trendon Watford and Brandon Williams to help Portland repel the Wizards (Molte Grazie!) and nip a six-game post-Break skid in the bud.

Portland’s schedule out of the Break has been a bit unkind, for a club presently fielding none of the nine players that coach Chauncey Billups trotted onto the court to kickstart this season. (Damian Lillard? On the shelf after abdominal surgery in January. CJ McCollum, Larry Nance, Robert Covington, and Norman Powell? Traded. Nassir Little? Out for the season. Cody Zeller? Cut. Jusuf Nurkic and Anfernee Simons? Injured.)

Hart and his newfound Blazers entered the Break with encouraging wins at Milwaukee and Memphis. But that was with Nurkic, Simons and fellow acquisition Justise Winslow upright. Nurkic’s plantar fasciitis put him on ice just as Portland embarked on a stretch of blowout losses, first versus G-State and Denver, then on the road at Phoenix, a pair of games in Minnesota, and at Utah. Simons (knee tendinopathy) and Winslow were lost along the way, too.

Now after beating Washington, Portland is on the road once more, initiating a five-game Eastern swing in Atlanta (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, ROOT Sports in PDX). A hungry Hart coincidentally has the Blazers within 1.0 game of New Orleans, Hart’s prior employer, for the final Play-In slot.

Everything about, “We have resorted to starting CJ Elleby and Drew Eubanks,” suggests stuffing this blah Blazer season in a pita, drizzling in some tzatziki, and calling it a wrap. But what goes down over the next couple weeks, as Portland visits Manhattan, Kyrie’s Funhouse, and the Pacers and Pistons, will dictate how eager they’ll be to get Nurkic, Eric Bledsoe and even Lillard out of street clothes. Will Portland need a gyro, after all?

The juice of a Play-In road game as a 10-seed, for them, wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. But, say, a 9-versus-10 home game, with a win in Portland and then at Minnesota to set up a seven-game series with Phoenix? As, one supposes, LeBron watches the postseason proceedings from home? How are those crunches going, Dame?

Portland (26-40) exists in a somewhat parallel universe to Indiana, their Eastern Conference cousins who mustered up enough second-half energy to nearly snatch the Hawks’ wigs at State Farm Arena last night.

The Blazers, ignoring injuries, have been done-in to this point by their woeful 9-22 road mark. They are 1-12 amid a Northwest Division that includes OKC and no current top-three seeds, 10-18 against the rest of the NBA West. Yet Coach Chauncey’s team is 15-10 versus the NBA East, inclusive of their 136-131 victory back on January 3, when Nate McMillan’s Hawks paid them a visit and Trae Young (career-high 56 points; his 14 assists one off his season-high) could barely be contained.

Watford, a two-time Alabama Mr. Basketball and an SEC All-Freshman Team member when the Skyhawks’ Skylar Mays was starring at LSU, is the only active Blazer that appeared in that game, a team-low 10 minutes off the bench. The forward’s two-way deal was upgraded a few weeks ago, in part out of necessity, and in part due to the potential of what he did on Saturday (career-high 27 points on 11-for-14 2FGs, 5-for-5 FTs) against the Fighting Kyle Kuzmas.

Watford’s two-way slot was filled by Williams, one of Portland’s former ten-day contractors. The rookie guard set his career-high mark at 27 points (aided by 11 made FTs) last Monday at Minnesota, besting his 21-point outburst (nine FGs) against the same T’Wolves two nights before. Even Dame’s cousin, two-way hanger-on Kelvin Blejins, walked out with his career-high of 11 points in the rematch.

Much like IHOP, any night is good night for a career night among the folks suiting up (someone double-check the uni colors pregame, please) for the Blazers right now. Former Spurs center Eubanks’ second 10-day hardship deal expired last night, and he made his best case on Saturday to get extended once more with his career-best 20 points plus 12 boards to zap the Zards. While Hart was hot from long-range, Portland’s 70 paint points were a season-high, as were their 28 points off the fastbreak.

Sunday’s not-so-great escape of the Pacers by the Hawks was just yesterday’s second-least satisfying sports victory in downtown Atlanta (Thank you, Jake from Around the Corner from State Farm!). Atlanta United took a bunch of no-names from Charlotte un-seriously in front of the rabid home crowd.

They coughed up the expansion MLS franchise’s first-ever goal, minutes after Atlanta’s soccer superstar gave the Five Stripes the lead, and they needed hustle and a dash of Irish luck in the waning moments to avoid gifting the wannabe rival Crowns their first MLS table point. Oh, what an unnecessary relief it is. The Hawks (33-34) don’t even have the fortune of ending games in a draw.

92.9’s Mike Conti, who called ATLUTD’s game, notes tonight will be the sixth consecutive opportunity for the Basketball Club to reach .500 since falling to 13-14 at home against Houston on December 16. To avoid a sixth consecutive failure, as the homestand gets disrupted with a trip up to Charlotte, our Cardiac Cagers need to do what it takes to keep random dudes named Trendon from trending.

Halfcourt execution from Atlanta, the team that still sports the lowest turnover percentage in the league (12.2 TO%, 9.9 post-Break; 16 straight games w/ fewer than 15 player turnovers), will be essential, be it pick-and-roll offense or rotational defense. Portland’s 15.2 team TO%, since the Break, is neck-and-neck with Cleveland as the league’s highest, while their post-Break D-Rating of 123.4 is unmatched.

Transition D is key, too, particularly with this current iteration of Trail Blazers seeking to pounce on its rest advantage as they did with the Wizards. Atlanta remains a cellar-dweller leaguewide in this category (1.20 opponent points per transition possession, slightly better than the Knicks), but there are encouraging signs some evolution is happening under Nate Mac’s watch.

The Hawks have permitted just 6.9 fastbreak points per-48 since the Break, by far an NBA-best (20^th-ranked before the Break with 12.8 allowed), while the Hawks +3.7 net points per-48 off TOs in that time (a negative net of -0.6 pre-Break) ranks behind only Toronto and Miami in the NBA East.

Portland has been paint shy all season long, even with Nurk in tow (41.7 paint points per-48 post-Break, behind only the Sixers, somehow). But Billups now fields a bunch of opportunists ready to head off to the races, preferably toward the rim, upon snaring any loose ball or defensive rebound. Young, Kevin Huerter and Bogi Bogdanovic cannot get caught flat-footed and playing, “Who He Play For?” while settling for take fouls to stem Blazer runouts.

Coming off his second-highest tally of the season just last night with 47 points (33 in the first half), Young will hopefully not need to match that season-high in shot volume (41 combined FGAs & FTAs) just to conclude Atlanta’s three-game homestand with a clean sheet. Danilo Gallinari and Huerter were duds from outside during January’s loss in Portland, negating not only Young’s offensive brilliance but also a perfect game, from the field (10-for-10 FGs @ POR; 5-for-5 last night), from center Clint Capela.

Mays and TLC filled the gaps, albeit not so ably, from the absent John Collins, Bogdanovic and De’Andre Hunter in that January game. Collins (questionable with his finger and foot ailments) may find himself rested once more, so Bogi’s offense (2-for-9 3FGs vs. IND on Sunday) and Dre’s defense will be desired to get back on track.

We’ll note here that Trae’s former defensive-nemesis-turned-momentary-backup, Kris Dunn, was scooped up yesterday on a 10-day hardship deal, and that his career-high 32 points was set with Chicago against recently-waived Blazer Dennis Smith’s Mavs back in January 2018. May we Hawks fans never have to revisit that particular figure again. And no Night to Remember for Cousin Kelvin, please!

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

The other back-to-.500 mark the Hawks can grab tonight is 60 wins apiece head-to-head with Portland all-time.

Meanwhile: Save us, Gorgui Dieng!

~lw3

[AHF]

18 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

The other back-to-.500 mark the Hawks can grab tonight is 60 wins apiece head-to-head with Portland all-time.

Meanwhile: Save us, Gorgui Dieng!

~lw3

Maybe we see an appearance of JJ?  Definitely need more minutes with OO on the floor as the PF.  I also expect Hunter to log minutes at the PF spot.

[kg01]

Not getting good vibes on this one ......

[Gray Mule]

Really?  Again?  Can the remaining Hawks break the curse of .500 ball?  Another opportunity awaits.  Did someone say we had failed 6 times since December?  Why would we believe that this opportunity will be any better?  Just remember, what is our record this season when it's the second game of a back to back?

What happened to our "ATL" uniforms?

 

[JeffS17]

This is the perfect trap game... second night of a b2b, tired legs versus a talented offensive team, no PFs available... 

I'm excited to see a front court of Dieng/OO which I think has potential.  I don't know if Trae can carry the load he did last night so we'll need a big game from Bogi/Kev/Hunter.  We need good effort and rotations on defense tonight, limit the open 3s

[Gray Mule]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

Maybe we see an appearance of JJ?  

Surely you jest!

[JayBirdHawk]

There is absolutely ZERO reason for Nate not to play JJ.....but it's Nate so.

[Spud2nique]

4 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

“Geaux Tigers! Say, Freshman, what’s your name, again?”

 

He was well on his way to a career-high scoring day in the first half, the guard leading the home team to a nearly 20-point halftime lead over an opponent missing multiple stars on the back end of a back-to-back. But soon, he and his team would find themselves knocked back on their heels. Their road-weary foes still scrambled to narrow the margin to single digits in the fourth quarter. His team’s potential Play-In status was in peril.

Luckily for the Portland Trail Blazers, and the Atlanta Hawks by extension, Josh Hart wasn’t having it. Not on this day.

The burly guard and fifth-year pro’s and-one four-point play closed out Saturday’s career-best outing at 44 points. Hart (6-for-9 on threes, team-highs of 4 steals and 6 assists) toiled in tandem with fellows named Trendon Watford and Brandon Williams to help Portland repel the Wizards (Molte Grazie!) and nip a six-game post-Break skid in the bud.

Portland’s schedule out of the Break has been a bit unkind, for a club presently fielding none of the nine players that coach Chauncey Billups trotted onto the court to kickstart this season. (Damian Lillard? On the shelf after abdominal surgery in January. CJ McCollum, Larry Nance, Robert Covington, and Norman Powell? Traded. Nassir Little? Out for the season. Cody Zeller? Cut. Jusuf Nurkic and Anfernee Simons? Injured.)

Hart and his newfound Blazers entered the Break with encouraging wins at Milwaukee and Memphis. But that was with Nurkic, Simons and fellow acquisition Justise Winslow upright. Nurkic’s plantar fasciitis put him on ice just as Portland embarked on a stretch of blowout losses, first versus G-State and Denver, then on the road at Phoenix, a pair of games in Minnesota, and at Utah. Simons (knee tendinopathy) and Winslow were lost along the way, too.

Now after beating Washington, Portland is on the road once more, initiating a five-game Eastern swing in Atlanta (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, ROOT Sports in PDX). A hungry Hart coincidentally has the Blazers within 1.0 game of New Orleans, Hart’s prior employer, for the final Play-In slot.

Everything about, “We have resorted to starting CJ Elleby and Drew Eubanks,” suggests stuffing this blah Blazer season in a pita, drizzling in some tzatziki, and calling it a wrap. But what goes down over the next couple weeks, as Portland visits Manhattan, Kyrie’s Funhouse, and the Pacers and Pistons, will dictate how eager they’ll be to get Nurkic, Eric Bledsoe and even Lillard out of street clothes. Will Portland need a gyro, after all?

The juice of a Play-In road game as a 10-seed, for them, wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. But, say, a 9-versus-10 home game, with a win in Portland and then at Minnesota to set up a seven-game series with Phoenix? As, one supposes, LeBron watches the postseason proceedings from home? How are those crunches going, Dame?

Portland (26-40) exists in a somewhat parallel universe to Indiana, their Eastern Conference cousins who mustered up enough second-half energy to nearly snatch the Hawks’ wigs at State Farm Arena last night.

The Blazers, ignoring injuries, have been done-in to this point by their woeful 9-22 road mark. They are 1-12 amid a Northwest Division that includes OKC and no current top-three seeds, 10-18 against the rest of the NBA West. Yet Coach Chauncey’s team is 15-10 versus the NBA East, inclusive of their 136-131 victory back on January 3, when Nate McMillan’s Hawks paid them a visit and Trae Young (career-high 56 points; his 14 assists one off his season-high) could barely be contained.

Watford, a two-time Alabama Mr. Basketball and an SEC All-Freshman Team member when the Skyhawks’ Skylar Mays was starring at LSU, is the only active Blazer that appeared in that game, a team-low 10 minutes off the bench. The forward’s two-way deal was upgraded a few weeks ago, in part out of necessity, and in part due to the potential of what he did on Saturday (career-high 27 points on 11-for-14 2FGs, 5-for-5 FTs) against the Fighting Kyle Kuzmas.

Watford’s two-way slot was filled by Williams, one of Portland’s former ten-day contractors. The rookie guard set his career-high mark at 27 points (aided by 11 made FTs) last Monday at Minnesota, besting his 21-point outburst (nine FGs) against the same T’Wolves two nights before. Even Dame’s cousin, two-way hanger-on Kelvin Blejins, walked out with his career-high of 11 points in the rematch.

Much like IHOP, any night is good night for a career night among the folks suiting up (someone double-check the uni colors pregame, please) for the Blazers right now. Former Spurs center Eubanks’ second 10-day hardship deal expired last night, and he made his best case on Saturday to get extended once more with his career-best 20 points plus 12 boards to zap the Zards. While Hart was hot from long-range, Portland’s 70 paint points were a season-high, as were their 28 points off the fastbreak.

Sunday’s not-so-great escape of the Pacers by the Hawks was just yesterday’s second-least satisfying sports victory in downtown Atlanta (Thank you, Jake from Around the Corner from State Farm!). Atlanta United took a bunch of no-names from Charlotte un-seriously in front of the rabid home crowd.

They coughed up the expansion MLS franchise’s first-ever goal, minutes after Atlanta’s soccer superstar gave the Five Stripes the lead, and they needed hustle and a dash of Irish luck in the waning moments to avoid gifting the wannabe rival Crowns their first MLS table point. Oh, what an unnecessary relief it is. The Hawks (33-34) don’t even have the fortune of ending games in a draw.

92.9’s Mike Conti, who called ATLUTD’s game, notes tonight will be the sixth consecutive opportunity for the Basketball Club to reach .500 since falling to 13-14 at home against Houston on December 16. To avoid a sixth consecutive failure, as the homestand gets disrupted with a trip up to Charlotte, our Cardiac Cagers need to do what it takes to keep random dudes named Trendon from trending.

Halfcourt execution from Atlanta, the team that still sports the lowest turnover percentage in the league (12.2 TO%, 9.9 post-Break; 16 straight games w/ fewer than 15 player turnovers), will be essential, be it pick-and-roll offense or rotational defense. Portland’s 15.2 team TO%, since the Break, is neck-and-neck with Cleveland as the league’s highest, while their post-Break D-Rating of 123.4 is unmatched.

Transition D is key, too, particularly with this current iteration of Trail Blazers seeking to pounce on its rest advantage as they did with the Wizards. Atlanta remains a cellar-dweller leaguewide in this category (1.20 opponent points per transition possession, slightly better than the Knicks), but there are encouraging signs some evolution is happening under Nate Mac’s watch.

The Hawks have permitted just 6.9 fastbreak points per-48 since the Break, by far an NBA-best (20^th-ranked before the Break with 12.8 allowed), while the Hawks +3.7 net points per-48 off TOs in that time (a negative net of -0.6 pre-Break) ranks behind only Toronto and Miami in the NBA East.

Portland has been paint shy all season long, even with Nurk in tow (41.7 paint points per-48 post-Break, behind only the Sixers, somehow). But Billups now fields a bunch of opportunists ready to head off to the races, preferably toward the rim, upon snaring any loose ball or defensive rebound. Young, Kevin Huerter and Bogi Bogdanovic cannot get caught flat-footed and playing, “Who He Play For?” while settling for take fouls to stem Blazer runouts.

Coming off his second-highest tally of the season just last night with 47 points (33 in the first half), Young will hopefully not need to match that season-high in shot volume (41 combined FGAs & FTAs) just to conclude Atlanta’s three-game homestand with a clean sheet. Danilo Gallinari and Huerter were duds from outside during January’s loss in Portland, negating not only Young’s offensive brilliance but also a perfect game, from the field (10-for-10 FGs @ POR; 5-for-5 last night), from center Clint Capela.

Mays and TLC filled the gaps, albeit not so ably, from the absent John Collins, Bogdanovic and De’Andre Hunter in that January game. Collins (questionable with his finger and foot ailments) may find himself rested once more, so Bogi’s offense (2-for-9 3FGs vs. IND on Sunday) and Dre’s defense will be desired to get back on track.

We’ll note here that Trae’s former defensive-nemesis-turned-momentary-backup, Kris Dunn, was scooped up yesterday on a 10-day hardship deal, and that his career-high 32 points was set with Chicago against recently-waived Blazer Dennis Smith’s Mavs back in January 2018. May we Hawks fans never have to revisit that particular figure again. And no Night to Remember for Cousin Kelvin, please!

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

Awesome as always lw3, seems like a trap game but we should beat this team by double digits. Pass that thing around like a hot potato! 
 

Will miss JC! And Gallo! PF depth needed I went with Okongwu and Capela but only on 2k.

Results forthcoming.

[bleachkit]

3 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

There is absolutely ZERO reason for Nate not to play JJ.....but it's Nate so.

Is he with the team?

[Spud2nique]

Trae and OO nearly messed around and got a triple double? Capela got this with the blocks. 
 

18/20 blocks were from CC and OO.

Yes a video game but Trae scores 56 points in real life so… 

35/7/12 and only a turnover for Trae.

CC with 14/18/10 blocks

OO with 16/12/8 blocks

Vegas has Hawks by 14.

2k had Hawks by 42.

 

I sound like a broken record but MOVE THE BALL, space out and play solid D and we win by at least double digits. Take care of business Hawks. Blazers don’t even want the win, they want a higher pick in the draft, let’s help them out tonight!

LONG LIVE DAN DICKAU…  (and his wife the x blazer cheerleader ) 

GO HAWKS!!!!!

[gHost83]

Man if JJ is with the Skyhawks tonight...  I'm gonna be so damn pissed off man

[LucastheThird]

I really want to see JJ start to get some minutes tonight. He has to start playing NBA minutes at some point. G League can only do so much for him. 

[Dnice]

He's supposed to be in Westchester, so be prepared to be pissed off.

[NBASupes]

This team isn't fun to watch outside of Trae moments of brilliance 

Edited March 15, 2022 by NBASupes

[NBASupes]

Kevin Knox is ass

[Atlantaholic]

Damn our defense is so bad. What is Nate doing with these rotations lol.

[Peoriabird]

More scrubs cooking the Hawks defense!

[Atlantaholic]

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Kevin Knox is ass

Jalen Johnson must be the worst player in the history of earth to not be able to crack the rotation in front of Knox.

[gHost83]

Remember it's the .500 game. Due to play like shit...