Official Game Thread: Raptors at Hawks

[lethalweapon3]

“Wait, doesn’t this make us Best II? I’m confused!”

 

If the defensive game plans improve, significantly and especially around the net, AND if the club sneaks into the Playoffs or at least the Play-In elimination round, with core players in decent health at regular season’s end, somebody in the Eastern Conference is bound to have problems sending home one of the league’s top scorers, not to mention its reigning top assist-maker.

Stop me if you’ve heard that somewhere around these parts before.

Atlanta United FC begins its annual trek through Major League Soccer tomorrow in chilly Central Ohio, at the home of the reigning MLS Cup Champions. ATLUTD returns with its head coach, Gonzalo Pineda, and its two headliner scoring threats at forward and in midfield.

Thiago Almada was the league’s Young Player of the Year award winner in 2023 after racking up a league-high 19 assists. In a league where You Know Who dropped out from the sky in midseason to draw eyeballs to David Beckham’s Inter Miami CF side, Atlanta’s Giorgos Giakoumakis stood out enough to take home MLS Newcomer of the Year honors, his 17 goals second-most in the league and tied for the most in the MLS East.

Together, the pair spearheaded a rejuvenated Atlanta attack that snuck 66 balls past goalkeepers into the opposing net, more regular season goals (66 in 34 MLS contests) than any other outfit besides the eventual 2023 champs, the Columbus Crew (better to say more “goal”, as the Crew tallied 67). 

Problem was, for too long in the season, Atlanta gave up about as much as it got, no matter the caliber of opponent. Stop me if that sounds way too familiar. The 53 goals allowed were the most by any MLS playoff squad. A 6-1 loss in Columbus early in the season, followed later by a 3-1 defeat at home to Charlotte and a 4-nil dirty-sheet shutout at the New York Red Bulls’ pen, were continual reminders that this could be a long, dreadful season.

While strategic adjustments, and more steadiness under goal, paid off for a late-season run, it was in the MLS quarterfinals where the Five Stripes pressed Columbus with six goals over three games, only to get bounced after allowing eight, including 4-2 in the decisive rubber match. 

Atlanta has almost purged itself of the on-pitch staff that first made soccer a sensation here, out of the gate. Brad Guzan may finally be watching games from the sideline, with Josh Cohen brought in to challenge him for the starting keeper spot. Aiming for an overseas payday, two-time MLS XI defender Miles Robinson’s upward trajectory was derailed unfairly by injury, and now he toils for 2023 Supporter’s Shield winner FC Cincinnati.

Almada and Giakoumakis get burdened with critiques that their chemistry as a duo, and leadership, could be better. Those will only amplify if, season after season, ATLUTD’s efforts to patch up its defense in the midfield and along the backline don’t pay off, and if Cohen isn’t ready to fully fill the aging Guzan’s cleats.

Critiques of the franchise-face stars, based on underwhelming results by the team and its intractable front office? Stop me, you’ve heard it all before.

At least Atlanta has a Football Club capable of taking some of local sports fans’ minds off the Basketball Club’s blues. Not so in Toronto, where Toronto FC checked out of 2023 with the worst record in the league, registering a league-low 4 wins and a league-worst 20 losses over 34 fixtures. Their front office went out and got a respected Canadian national-teams coach, close friend to one of the team’s two top players. They let him warm up with the MLS team in the season finale, then went out this winter and got… well, pretty much nobody… to upgrade the flawed roster.

Growth from within, I suppose? Feels to me like it might not work out so great, for some odd reason.

It has been a rough unraveling for the club that carried the MLS Cup in 2017, one year before Atlanta hoisted it. Toronto FC fans are still pouring through the magnetometers, though. The last-place club, among 31 teams, ranked sixth in league attendance last year.

At least, with Masai Ujiri, Raptors fans can kind of see the vision. With just five wins spread across their past 20 games (20-36; 5-11 since dealing away Pascal Siakam), the roster upheaval has been difficult for coach Darko Rajakovic, and his Rising Star pupil Scottie Barnes, to manage. And that’s fine, by design.

Ujiri would like to salvage the Top-6 protected first-rounder he dealt away for center Jakob Poeltl to man the frontline (scrambling to make up for a deal with the Spurs that went sideways? Where they do that at?). Beyond that, the Raps have just the Pacers’ first-rounder, unprotected from the Siakam trade, in the middle of the order for what’s likely to be an underwhelming NBA Draft this summer.

So the soft-tank to close out this NBA season, for Toronto, is to see whether the newcomers’ contracts are worthy of renewing and extending. In particular, Immanuel Quickley (24 points vs. BRK last night; 5.7 APG, 1.2 TOs/game, 39.6 3FG% in 21 TOR games), a restricted free agent, and fellow rookie-scale acquisition Ochai Agbaji, locked in by his ex-employer, the Jazz, for next season but whose 2025-26 salary remains a club option for the Raptors.

Unlike the victims of the Hawks’ last victory here at State Farm Arena (Houston, back on Feb. 10), if there is a team accustomed to wading through Customs in time to play a SEGABABA road game, it’s Toronto. Still, armed with just 13 non-two-way players active on the roster, Coach Darko has no choice but to spread out minutes on back-to-backs (last SEGABABA win for TOR at home vs. PHX on Nov. 29, 0-6 since).

The good news, for his Raptors, is their starters were able to cool their heels a bit yesterday, once coach Kevin Ollie’s Brooklyn Nets gave up the ghost in the fourth quarter (TOR season-highs of 46 fastbreak points, 32 points off TOs vs. BRK) to close out Toronto’s 13-game homestand. Even better news for them is that this is the last back-to-back set they’ll endure for about a month.

Rajakovic hopes he can keep the moping, particularly from Barnes, from trending up as the winning percentage trends down. Barnes escaped a team penalty after walking to the locker room before the close of last Monday’s 122-99 home loss to those pesky Spurs (we see you, Masai). Scottie beamed up enough (29 points, 0-for-4 3FGs and 6 TOs but 12 boards and 8 dimes) to give visiting Indiana a scare in the final game preceding All-Star weekend. But Toronto ultimately was unable to hold off Siakam’s new team, the competitive 127-125 loss effectively keeping the #6 pick under wraps for the Raps.

Competitive maturity is the name of the game for the back end of this season in Toronto, even as they profess to be hunting for victories where they can. This evening (7:30 PM Eastern, Peachtree TV and 92.9 FM in ATL, TSN in TOR), Poeltl, RJ Barrett and Barnes will want to exploit Atlanta’s prolonged rebounding woes as best they can, with Onyeka Okongwu (sprained toe) sidelined for at least the next week and Clint Capela just returning and getting back up to speed.

Jordan Nwora will be up for a double-dip at The Farm. His 24-point, 9-rebound, 6-assist outing off the bench nearly helped Toronto escape Atlanta back on January 28. It took all of Trae Young’s fourth-quarter heroics, plus a timely putback of Young’s floater by Saddiq Bey with a second to spare, for the Hawks to pull away with a 126-125 victory.

Unlike that game, All-Star Trae will have his running buddy, Dejounte Murray, available to take some of the ballhandling pressure off him in the clutch. Having De’Andre Hunter (44 combined points in ATL’s last 2 losses, incl. 14-for-14 FTs) at their disposal for the first time against Toronto all season should only help improve a relatively rested Atlanta’s chances for victory tonight. Of course, these are the Hawks, with their All-Star Game-quality team defense, that we’re talking about here.

Giving up so many goals, whether we’re scoring 99 or 129 points, is wholly unwatchable. Except, it’s apparently not. You’ve all seen Locked On Hawks’ Brad Rowland’s twxxt this week about Bally Sports printing money off Hawks games in the Atlanta market (highest TV ratings in 7 years, a 37 percent year-over-year ratings increase; No. 1 show on cable in ATL for 31 telecasts so far). We gluttons for punishment do love to hatewatch for as long as we can. After all, we are the ‘A’ that makes RHOA the weekly car-crash where no one can bear to look away (sorry to hear the news, Porsha. ‘Twas fun while it lasted, eh? And welcome back!).

Observe, for as long as you could stomach it, the NBA’s All-Star Game pushing 400 points on an I-score-you-score tip, still getting a 14-percent boost in viewership from the prior matador-defense exhibition. No Usher halftime show required.

Home attendance at The Farm is down a smidgen (about 3.7 percent on a per-game basis from 2022-23), but not enough to furrow the brow of our swag-surfing ownership. You’d think I’d have learned from the Football Club (no, not you, Falcons) that defense means championships, but not necessarily eyeballs glued to screens and/or booties in (or standing above, in ATLUTD’s case) the seats.

I don’t stream, so I have no knowledge of AppleTV+’s numbers. And I rely on Mike Conti’s golden pipes on 92.9 to convey whatever’s going on live at The Benz. But I do know, despite the downturn in Atlanta’s success since getting the ‘chip in 2018, their 47,000 average home attendance last season clears every other MLS club by well over 10,000 ticketholders. With or without a Messi-ah coming to save us, there are no signs that Five Stripes Fever will subside anytime soon. Don’t Stop (anyone), Won’t Stop (watching, cheering, hoping for better).

No matter how often our team puts the ball through the net, no matter how highlight-worthy the scoring gets, if our opponents are scoring more prolifically and at drastic league-high levels, fans will not just show up but show out, usually on The Internets, with the current scoring stars bearing the brunt of the blame for somehow not forging more wins on a team that has seemingly moved years past its peak.

Somebody stop me if you’ve… better yet, Atlanta pro sports teams, somebody just go out and stop somebody.

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

Things could be worse around here. We're like a 2-seed when it comes to Gameday forecasts.

The last two wins over the Raps moved the Hawks in front of their all-time head-to-head (53-52). At the risk of a jinx, Atlanta has won their last three games against the Raps at The Farm.

Of the five games where a quartet of Hawks notched double-doubles, two were against the Raps. Onyeka on Dec. 15, and Jalen on Jan. 28, joined in with the trio of Trae, Clint, and Saddiq.

Capela is off the morning Boo-Boo Report and is assumed to be activated and starting while Okongwu heals his little piggy. AJ Griffin finally made his way to Collipark, but whether he'll be replaced on the big-boy club by Kobe Bufkin (listed as Questionable for now) remains to be seen. Trent Forrest being listed as "Ineligible to Play" comes across as managerial malfeasance to me, but whatever.

Garrett Temple being the DNP exception, 12 of Toronto's 13 main players participated in last night's win back in Ontario, with four guys held out until the final five minutes of garbage time (aforementioned Hawks Killer Jordan Nwora, Chris Boucher, That Other McDaniels, and somebody named D.J. Carton, up from G-League Iowa on a ten-day). Their injury/illness list will come due around 1:30 PM. 

~lw3

[macdaddy]

I checked resale tickets for tonight and it still looks like it will be a good crowd.   I'm expecting big bargains the rest of the way.  

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

Why haven't we made a decision on Forrest? He's Ineligible to play anymore NBA games on his 2way and he's also not back in GL. 

[macdaddy]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Why haven't we made a decision on Forrest? He's Ineligible to play anymore NBA games on his 2way and he's also not back in GL. 

Do we have to make a decision?  Isn't he just a 2way with no more games?

[Gray Mule]

21 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Do we have to make a decision?  Isn't he just a 2way with no more games?

If he plays with the Hawks again, he gets a regular contract for the remainder of the season.  If they need him, they must give him this.  Hawks really don't know if they are going to need him or not.  I suppose he's just hanging around, waiting to see.

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

Do we have to make a decision?  Isn't he just a 2way with no more games?

 

50 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

If he plays with the Hawks again, he gets a regular contract for the remainder of the season.  If they need him, they must give him this.  Hawks really don't know if they are going to need him or not.  I suppose he's just hanging around, waiting to see.

I guess he's a practice guy.

[lethalweapon3]

tick tick tick tick tick tick...

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

Hunter off the bench.

 

 

[terrell]

1-9 start.. lol

Same ole Hawks I see

[JayBirdHawk]

It seems we've picked up right where we left off vs Charlotte before the break 

[JayBirdHawk]

CC with 2 missed bunnies already 

[terrell]

TRae playing Allstar D on Quickley..

No Bogi out of the timeout with the offense doing nothing? lmao

[terrell]

Which team played last night?

[TheNorthCydeRises]

My bad y'all.  I put a 40 spot on the Hawks in a parlay to cover the -7.5

 

( hitting chest )

My bad.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Save us Bruno

[JayBirdHawk]

C'mon Trae, no need for this.

 

 

[terrell]

Trae Young man.. -17

1 point

Youre a max guy dude.. Its the fkn Raptors.. smh

2 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

C'mon Trae, no need for this.

 

 

Traede him... smfh