THE Atlanta Falcons were unable to improve on their recent form as they suffered a double-digit home loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, 116-103, Sunday night at State Farm Arena.
Bogdan Bogdanovic led the Hawks with 25 points, with Dejounte Murray adding 23 points and 11 assists. For the Pelicans, Trey Murphy III led with 28 points coming off the bench. Zion Williamson added 27 points.
Since Trae Young was sidelined due to injury, the Hawks have not faced what one would consider a quality opponent. The teams they’ve faced so far have either been ravaged by injuries, like New York and Cleveland, or are lottery-bound teams. New Orleans represented the first team that was neither of those two things and… the Hawks were quickly run out of their building in the first half of that game, losing until at 20 points in the first half before the game. The Hawks stabilized and cut the lead to 11 points before heading into the locker room at halftime.
In the early exchanges, the Pelicans had very easy success getting in and scoring in the paint – 16 of their first 21 points were in the paint.
Zion Williamson does Zion Williamson things, and once he gets big, he can be pretty hard to stop:
The Pelicans made the most of their counterattack opportunities in the first half, with CJ McCollum driving to the rim in transition:
After an Atlanta miss at the edge, the Pelicans push in transition with Naji Marshall who finds Williamson with the ally-oop:
It’s hard to stop Williamson when he’s on the run like that and he’s getting up in the air.
He would return the favor in the second quarter to Murphy III after a turnover in Atlanta:
The Pelicans were simply superior at almost every position and matchup, with Brandon Ingram easily piloting De’Andre Hunter as he threw off the screen and scored the finish at the rim:
Onyeka Okongwu continues to be missed as Bruno Fernando completely loses track of Larry Nance Jr., who gets to the point of dunking and duly finishes:
Nance would then use his physicality to his advantage as he easily established his position inside Murray and finished at the rim:
The Pelicans had a seven-point lead with 10:18 left in the second quarter, and that’s when Murphy III went on an absolute tear to open this game for the Pelicans, scoring the next 13 points for the Pelicans. lead to 18 points leading to an Atlanta timeout.
The Pelicans had threatened to blow this game the second time the outside shots started falling in addition to those easy baskets in the paint, and that’s exactly how it happened.
“He made some shots and it’s tough with that kind of distance and height,” Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said of Murphy III. “When you’re transferred, whether it’s Zion or Brandon Ingram in an isolation situation and you want to help and they disperse, you’re in an isolation situation and you have to get out. In some of them you have to organize a big competition, which is difficult given its size. I thought his bank shot had made us lose him too; we felt like we had good possession. They are hard to keep, give them credit. We saw it, we also knew what we were facing defensively. They have very good defenders on the ball.
The Hawks really posed little threat the rest of the game other than Bogdanovic making a three-pointer, but the lead only dipped below 10 once in the second half and that was produced in the early stages of the third. After that, the Pelicans’ lead reached its largest margin of 22 points and the Pelicans easily won a double-digit victory.
The Hawks struggled for efficiency for much of the game, ultimately shooting over 40% from the field on 41.8% for the game. The Hawks faced a lot of contested shots last night, as the Pelicans are an improvement over Memphis in almost every way.
Dejounte Murray in particular found this to be the case. After scoring 41 points against Memphis, Murray scored 23 points but did so on 7 of 20 from the field after struggling to overcome the defensive presence of Herb Jones.
Jones did a great job contesting Murray’s shots, including this three-point attempt:
Murray tries to operate inside but Jones strips him on the way up and is credited for the block:
Murray, once again, tries to take a shot through Jones’ contest but to no avail:
This time, Murray goes deeper into the lane but runs into the same problem with the same result:
A few perhaps ill-advised shots from Murray when it was clear Jones was going to have a good game, but it was a tough game for Murray – Jones is a fantastic defender.
Snyder was pleased with the Hawks’ efforts to get into the paint and pressure at the rim — as Murray was trying to do — even as the game slipped away from the hosts.
“We struggled early in the game,” Snyder said of the Hawks’ shooting. “I think we did a good job of continuing to compete and play, we were down 20 at one point. We talk a lot about breaking the paint, attacking the rim, and when we did that, we were able to generate a better look through our execution. Something we’re going to continue to do and continue to look at each other openly and continue to attack the rim and break the paint.
The Hawks have tried to mix things up by running a zone defense on occasion – the Pelicans have joined them on that front as well – but the Hawks haven’t really had the same success as the visitors in using it.
“They had rhythm,” Snyder said of the run zone defense. “Sometimes even the shooters, when we enter the zone, it’s a situation that wouldn’t necessarily make sense when they’re shooting on the ground, but sometimes the shots are a little different. It’s something we try to do to change the pace of the game a little bit. Eventually they see enough and start attacking him more and that’s what happened.
There isn’t much to say about the Hawks last night. They came up against a playoff team, a healthy team, and the result was what should have been expected. With Young, Johnson and Okongwu all out, the Hawks were undermanned and overmatched at several positions.
One Hawk who won his game convincingly was Clint Capela, who played his game very well (scoring 18 points on 9-of-13 from the field to go with 14 rebounds) and made life more difficult for Williamson at times while also providing a presence on the offensive glass, grabbing six offensive boards. Other than that, the Hawks had a thin offensive selection last night.
Vit Krejci started at forward as Jalen Johnson recovers from his ankle injury, and Krejci had some good moments in his limited time. He turned down shots he could have easily made himself and instead set up his teammates for high-percentage shots.
“He had some open shots, but if he passes the ball to Bogi for the same look, I think that’s the right play,” Snyder said of Krejci. “You want him to attack, but there are many ways to attack. He is capable of making pieces for others. This helps us. When he’s in the starting lineup, he can do that for the other guys on the team and I think he’s done a good job moving his feet.
However, the Hawks could suffer further losses as Saddiq Bey went down on a play in the fourth quarter and was in serious pain.
After the game, Snyder was unable to provide an update on Bey and the Hawks are hoping that Bey, a constant presence for the Hawks amid all of their injuries at the forward position, will not be benched. deviation for an extended period.
It’s certainly not ideal as the Hawks now embark on a five-game Western Conference road trip. The Hawks are hoping Bey’s injury isn’t too serious and Johnson and Okongwu can return soon.
For the game itself, it was as one might have predicted. The Pelicans currently sit in fifth place in the West and are headed toward an automatic playoff berth now two games ahead of Phoenix, Sacramento, Dallas, Lakers, The Warriors are hustling and playing very good basketball. With the Hawks also shorthanded, a 13-point loss is pretty respectable given the circumstances.
Looking ahead, not much changes for the Hawks as the playoffs approach. They are 3.5 games ahead of the Nets, two behind the Bulls who, in turn, are four games behind Miami for the eighth seed. Unless the Nets run away and the Hawks crash, Atlanta is pretty much set for a Play-In game against the Bulls.
The Hawks (29-35) are back in action for the first game of this five-game road trip Wednesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers (18-45).
Till next time…
