Peachtree Hoops: Hawks end regular season with whimper in loss to Pacers

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Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images

The Hawks were run out of Indy in a 157-115 demolition.

The Atlanta Hawks ended their 2023-24 regular season with a 115-157 drubbing at the hands of the Indiana Pacers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Wednesday afternoon.

Dejounte Murray led the Hawks with 32 points with Mouhamed Gueye adding 19 points off the Atlanta bench. For the Pacers, Myles Turner led with 31 points, and Pascal Siakam added 28 points.

The Hawks entered this game with nothing to play for — their Play-In seed secured — and as such Clint Capela rested ahead of this contest with Bruno Fernando starting at center. The Pacers, meanwhile, needed a victory to secure the 6-seed and an automatic playoff berth. And from minute one\ they ran down the Hawks’ throat, and 8-0 start was a precursor of the result that was to come.

The Pacers quickly ran out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter before scoring a whopping 49 first quarter points, extending their lead to 15 points by the end of the first quarter.

Myles Turner was fantastic for the hosts in the first quarter, and he utterly destroyed Fernando in the matchup. Fernando has had some good spots at center this season, but he was utterly decimated in this matchup while Turner’s size, athleticism and shooting excelled.

Here, Fernando gets too drawn into the paint and leaves the threat of Turner from the outside looming, and so Turner hits the three:

Fernando isn’t so much to blame on this next play from Turner, as Murray allowing Tyrese Haliburton to get ahead of him down the floor forces Fernando to go with Haliburton. But on the trail Turner is a deadly threat, and he hits the trailing three here:

On a pick-and-pop, Turners rises into his shot before Fernando can get a hand up to contest, and it’s an easy make for Turner:

When Fernando wasn’t near the rim/on the floor there was simply no contest for Turner’s height inside:

The Hawks made a run in the second quarter to tie the game in the second quarter at 62-62 but a missed free throw from Murray — meaning they never took the lead despite Murray’s 20 points in the second quarter on 8-of-9 shooting. The Pacers then made a 14-0 run to undo everything the Hawks had done to get into the game again.

A 39-21 third quarter in favor of the Pacers opened the game up for good as the scoreline completely fell apart in the third quarter, and the Pacers saw the game out from this point forward having weathered the storm in the second quarter and returning the favor before the end of the first half.

The Pacers finished with another extremely high-scoring effort against the Hawks, scoring 157 points on 65% from the field, 19 threes on 53% shooting, and they led by as many as 44 points, scoring 80 points in the paint. The Pacers were hot, but the Hawks were considerably poor in certain spots and matchups. And they looked, quite frankly, disinterested in winning this game — again, their seeding already set with nothing to play for in the grand scheme of seeding.

Postgame, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder commented on the difficulties involved with playing the Pacers (the Hawks finished 0-4 against the Pacers, including two games conceding 150 or more points), as well alluding to the fact that this game simply did not matter in the grand scheme of things.

“It’s more what Indiana is doing.” said Snyder postgame. “We’ve played about five different pick-and-roll coverages against them, usually it’s in transition when you have to score. There was a point where I thought we showed some resilience in the first half where we cut the lead, and we were the game at that point. In the beginning of the third it blew up. They obviously shot the ball well tonight.”

“To the extent that it’s a game you have to put behind you, there isn’t time to look at it, analyze it and you need to move forward immediately because we play Chicago on Wednesday,” he continued. “What I’d like to take from the game, if there’s something we can take, would be the fact that we were down the way we were early and we were able to get back in the game. We were out of the game quickly thereafter, but whatever adversity you’re going to face that’s what the playoffs are about. They’re about handling and dealing with adversity, playing through it and giving yourself a chance.”

Snyder would reaffirm this stance on a couple of occasions in his postgame comments, alluding to the seeding the Hawks faced as well as the unpredictability the Pacers play with.

“This is not a game that, in my mind, is a teaching game,” said Snyder. “I’m not saying you don’t always look at certain things and try to take things with you, but in a lot of respects the way that they play is hard to simulate.”

Something that was noteworthy from this game was the fact Trae Young became the franchise leader in assists as he registered 12 assists on the night to take his tally beyond 3,867 assists, eclipsing the long-standing record belonging to Glenn ‘Doc’ Rivers.

Point God.

At only 25 years old, Trae Young now holds the FRANCHISE RECORD for assists pic.twitter.com/X6qAg1IODM

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) April 14, 2024

Now, this did come with eight turnovers on the night, but on a night where we’re talking about things not mattering in the grand scheme of things, those eight turnovers won’t matter given the night that was in it. It’s a remarkable achievement at age 25, and Young deserves a lot of credit for this achievement.

With the extended garbage time that this game eventually offered, there were extended runs for the likes of Gueye (who showed flashes) as well as A.J. Griffin, who shot 4-of-14 in a tough outing as he concludes a bitterly disappointing — and confusing — sophomore season after a promising rookie campaign. His summer and his road ahead will be an interesting point of development.

There is little else to note from this game that is worth taking away — to which as Snyder alluded. It was a throwaway game against a team in Indiana who needed to pick up a victory, and they did so with ease in the end. For the Hawks, their destiny is the same as it was arguably two months ago: a play-in game against the Bulls. And it’s here wherein the focus lies for the Hawks.

“As I said, I think the important thing for us is to focus on Chicago,” said Snyder. “Obviously you’re disappointed when you end the season on a note like this, but the season isn’t over. Both can be true.”

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The Hawks finish the regular season with a 36-46 record and lock themselves into the 10-seed and set up a Play-In contest with the Chicago Bulls (39-43) in Chicago on Wednesday night in a ‘win or go home’ contest.

Until next time...

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