Peachtree Hoops: Hawks unable to counter final Chicago punch as season ends in Play-In loss to Bulls

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Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images

When the Bulls threw the third quarter punch, the Hawks could not reply and they stumbled to defeat.

The Atlanta Hawks’ 2023-24 season officially came to an end as the Hawks fell short in the NBA’s Play-In tournament fixture against the Chicago Bulls at the United Center on Wednesday night, 131-116.

Dejounte Murray led the Hawks in scoring 30 points, as Clint Capela added 22 points and 17 rebounds to the cause. For the Bulls, Coby White scored a career-best 42 points with Nikola Vucevic adding 24 points and 12 rebounds.

This was it. The collision course that both knew was coming for, roughly, three months now. The Hawks and Bulls knew that victory for one in the 9/10 matchup would mean a chance to progress towards the playoffs, and the other would be eliminated. The stakes could not have been more clear, and the opponent could not have been known clear — both teams knew this was coming for a long time.

In the end, there was no comeback in the season for Jalen Johnson or Onyeka Okongwu, their respective injuries keeping them sidelined for this one — having already lost Saddiq Bey to season-ending injury along the road to the Play-In. The Hawks were also without Vit Krejci, the team electing not to convert his contract to a ‘rest of season contract’ (the Hawks would have needed to waive someone on the existing roster since Krejci was on a two-way deal) on the final day of the regular season. The Bulls were without Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball — as they have for a while now — and were dealt a blow during the game when Alex Caruso sustained a foot injury and played only 17 minutes.

In the first quarter, it was all Chicago. A 40-point first quarter, highlighted by a 16-2 run to end the quarter put the Bulls in a commanding position early on, leading by 18 points by the end of the first quarter.

The Bulls did an excellent job of keeping the Hawks largely to the perimeter, and these perimeter attempts did not fall in the first quarter as Atlanta shot 1-of-9 from three.

Plays like this, where the Hawks just can’t get themselves a look inside, and Bogdan Bogdanovic misses the three here:

The Bulls’ perimeter defense was strong in the first quarter, led by Caruso and Ayo Dosunmu, but the Hawks didn’t help themselves by settling into pull-up threes. Or in this case, a three where Trae Young should probably stay in the corner and allow Murray to drive, but instead comes to the ball and bring Caruso with him, forcing Murray to bail on his drive. Young pulls up from three and misses:

This is probably just a miscommunication/misunderstanding, but at the same time Young and Murray have played together long enough at this stage that this shouldn’t be occurring in a game like this. Young himself has clearly not been 100% healthy and his comfort level with the bandaged left hand (which he removed at half time) was clear and it most likely contributed to some of his five first quarter turnovers.

Defensively for the Hawks, the Bulls did a really good job of shifting the Hawks’ defenders around and working openings for themselves on drives with ball movement. Their pick-and-roll game — led by DeMar DeRozan and White — was very good in the first quarter, with DeRozan hitting those mid-range shots coming off of the Vucevic screens (who you have to be wary of in pick-and-pop situations and on the roll as he’s a large presence near the basket) and White picking his spots.

The Hawks didn’t help themselves at times, a couple of Young’s live ball turnovers led directly to Chicago points, such as this attempted pass to Bruno Fernando leading to a Bulls fastbreak in which DeRozan cleans up the miss at the rim:

To end the first quarter, Young’s pass is easily telegraphed by Caruso, and Dalen Terry finishes in transition with the dunk to give the Bulls their 40th point:

Possessions such as this next play, where White just paces up the floor and springs into a pull-up three with the Hawks still getting back, were just poor:

That said, as bad as the first quarter was, the Hawks mustered a response in the form of a 14-0 run to begin the second quarter to bring this game to within three points behind a 45 point second quarter, led by Murray who scored 23 points in the first half.

The Hawks kept pace with the Bulls for a large portion of the third quarter, but, similar to how the first quarter ended, the Bulls went on a big run — a 17-2 run — to blow the game open from 88-85 to 105-87.

The Bulls’ run began with the only three Vucevic hit in six attempts last night but demonstrates the problems he poses defenses with his ability to hit a jumpshot, with Capela having to give DeRozan his attention and Vucevic hits the corner three on the find from DeRozan:

Following that three, Young tries to draw a foul on a three-point attempt, doesn’t get the call, and the Bulls streak in transition for an easy basket, prompting a quick timeout from Hawks head coach Quin Snyder:

That timeout — taken to stop the bleeding and prevent things from getting out of control — was a precursor of what was to come as the Hawks soon lost control of this game.

With the shotclock winding down, the Hawks are stuck on the perimeter and the ball is shifted to Wesley Matthews at the last moment to attempt a three, but he can only draw air:

Coby White was excellent in the third quarter (scoring 11 points in the third), slicing, dicing and weaving his way through traffic at times in the third, including this play where he finds and creates a gap to finish at the rim in impressive style:

With the Hawks now down by double-digits again, the need for a basket is obviously high, but Young cannot make a reply as his three results in an airball:

I think Young’s discomfort played a factor here, you can see he wants to use his left hand and go to his left but ends up settling for that three.

White would again weave his way through the Hawks’ defense, this time with an excellent spin move to evade Bogdanovic to score at the rim:

To cap the run, Murray is blocked at the rim and White again hits the Hawks where it hurts in transition to push the lead to 18 points:

By the end of the third, the Bulls had outscored the Hawks 37-25 on 65% shooting. The Hawks nothing left after this point, this punch from the Bulls to end the third proved one too many. While Atlanta eventually found some offense all they could do at best was match the Bulls. The lead never dipped below 15 points from this point forward, only hitting 15 points with a meaningless three at the end of the game.

The Hawks have staged a number of dramatic comebacks but didn’t have another one in them when their season needed it most. And when the buzzer sounded after an uninspired fourth quarter sounded to bring the 131-116 game to a close, so too did their season.

Postgame, Quin Snyder alluded to the effort the Hawks put into making the initial comeback after the first quarter took a lot of energy out of them, a well which eventually ran dry.

“We didn’t start well,” said Snyder postgame. “A lot of times when you’re playing catch-up it takes a lot of energy. When we did cut the lead, at a certain point we just ran out of gas. You want to dig down deep for a playoff game but hats off to Chicago, they played well. Obviously not the result we wanted, but very appreciative for our guys and feel grateful to have an opportunity to coach them and be the coach for the Hawks.”

The two teams went on their respective runs, but the Bulls were able to save themselves the energy of having to mount a comeback and were ready to throw another punch against an opponent who was weary after making their run.

“The NBA is a game of runs,” said Trae Young. “They made runs and they were beating us pretty bad early. And we came back in the game and made it a game and had a run too. It’s tough when you get down that much, fighting that hard to get back in the game it’s tough to take the lead too. We put ourselves in a tough situation. It’s tough, I feel we had a good chance but they put us in a tough situation and they played really well and shot the lights out.”

The Hawks’ gameplan was revealed after the game, and it involved doubling DeMar DeRozan/getting the ball out of his hands and test others to make shots. DeRozan finished with 22 points 10-of-19 shooting from the field

“DeMar started making shots and you’re game-planning to get the ball out of his hands if it’s appropriate,” said Snyder. “We did a bunch of different things, eventually Dosunmu and Coby White in pick-and-roll, a number of things challenged us.”

Dejounte Murray spoke to the gameplan postgame, but didn’t exactly appear to endorse it, and also spoke to the pride of guarding his man in the NBA.

“I guess the gameplan was they wanted to double DeMar, so you as players respect your coaches and you follow the gameplan and that was the gameplan,” said Murray. “You see who has doubling DeMar and they gave other guys confidence. I wish they would have missed shots, I wish they didn’t gain confidence this game, but it’s the NBA. They work hard. They’re here for a reason. We’re doubling one of their teammates all game, so it’s up to them to make or miss shots, and they made shots.”

The Bulls did the majority of their work inside the paint, scoring 72 points in the paint with White scoring 24 of his 42 in the paint. It was very easy for the Bulls to get inside, not just in the halfcourt but in transition too, where the Bulls scored 19 points.

“I thought our offense hurt our defense at times, they were really good in transition when they made their runs,” said Snyder. “That’s a hard one to quote-unquote gameplan against. Any time you commit two to the ball it puts you in positions where you have to closeout and people are driving you, that was a consistent theme. If you don’t do that, you saw Coby White getting into the lane. A lot of things we can pick apart that we can do better, but bottom line is we had a group that competed and went through a lot together. Hopefully that will make us better going forward.”

The Bulls combined this efficiency (57% from the field) by shooting 42% from three, whereas the Hawks shot 30% from three on 37 attempts. Bogdanovic struggled with 3-of-10 shooting from distance, while De’Andre Hunter shot 0-of-7 from three.

Speaking of Hunter, his consistency is often referred to as an area that needs improvement, as he’s just as likely to follow a 24 point game with a 4-of-14 game than he is with another efficient night. While this season was certainly a step forward in this regard, this was a bad game to shoot 3-of-16 from the field from Hunter — a really tough night shooting the ball that proved costly. Of the other Hawks who struggled, Young’s issues have been highlighted already as he shot 4-of-12 shooting from the field to go with six turnovers, finishing with 22 points and 10 assists.

Young was clearly uncomfortable physically but more so mentally playing with the brace — which he removed at halftime.

“I wasn’t being as aggressive to start the game, and I had a few turnovers and was thinking about it too much,” said Young of taking off the brace. “My doctors probably won’t be happy with me, I’m just happy I made it through the game. It was frustrating to begin the game, so I took it off to kind of have my mind not even think about it anymore.”

The Hawks also got very little from their bench, just 13 points with eight of them coming from Garrison Mathews. It’s not that the Bulls’ bench was much better (18-13), but the Hawks really had nothing outside of Mathews last night off the bench. Fernando, Matthews, and the two minutes of Mouhamed Gueye didn’t move the needle. It again highlights the curious decision involving the ineligible Vit Krejci, who had been a solid rotation member down the stretch.

Overall, the Bulls were quite clearly worthy winners — they shot the ball better from the field, from three, their ball movement was superior, they took better care of the ball, they lived on the rim and got greater contributions across the board. Every Chicago starter shot 50% or higher, and all made great contributions across the board.

Coby White was obviously fantastic, scoring 42 points on 15-of-21 shooting from the field to go with six assists and zero turnovers. White becomes the latest to go off for a career-night against the Hawks in a season that has featured a number of these outings. The plan to slow DeRozan wasn’t entirely effective, and White’s confidence, as Murray alluded to, grew and grew. You can make the argument that this game would have been even uglier had Caruso been able to feature in the second half.

The Hawks obviously had their challenges this season, namely personnel limitations created through injury, and the team had designs at the start of the season higher than crashing out in the Play-In Tournament.

“At the beginning of the year we didn’t think we’d be in this position,” said Young. “Injuries made it tough on us, and we were still able to be in this position to give ourselves a chance. We didn’t come out and make enough plays tonight. They were making a lot of plays, Coby got going, Vucevic was playing really well, everybody played really well. You’ve got to tip your hats to them.”

Snyder, meanwhile, was proud of his player’s approach in how they handled adversity this season.

“You want to grow and try to get better, regardless of what you’re handed,” said Snyder. “Dealing with adversity, embracing it on some level is what you want to do. I thought our guys did that throughout the course of the year. I’m proud of them and their approach.”

Now, it’s finished. This injury-ridden season can be put away. There are plenty of takeaways and questions ahead of their offseason — ones that will be surely be posed during exit interviews. But for now, the 2023-24 season is over for the Atlanta Hawks. And for the sake of the health of the roster — those playing and those not playing — perhaps it’s for the best.

Until next time...

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