Jalen Johnson led the Hawks with 28 points and the Atlanta Hawks were able to get the Miami Heat, 120-110 Saturday afternoon at State Farm Arena. With the victory, the Hawks closed out the holiday homestand three-and-one.
One of the key takeaways from Saturday’s game (moreover the homestand overall) is the Hawks’ play on the defensive end of the floor.
“I think we’ve gotten stops,” explained Hawks head coach Quin Snyder. “I think we’ve just been able to defend during those times and then try to run opportunistically late in the game. Usually that’s a point when the game can slow down. And it doesn’t [necessarily] play to our strengths, especially if we get a stop. If you get scored on that’s a little different. Let’s execute. But, we want to try to reward ourselves, so to speak. If we can get stops in the defensive end.”
Tyler Herro scored 28 points and dished out ten assists for the Heat. Olympian Bam Adebayo contributed 17 points and ten rebounds. Notably, star Jimmy Butler, sat out for what was described as “return to competition reconditioning.” The team say he will return to the court at home Wednesday to play the New Orleans Pelicans.
Hawks are gaining their wings
As for Atlanta, it appears this team is not allowing opposing teams to create the proverbial avalanche when they go on runs. Johnson eluded to that idea during is postgame availability session.
“Tonight, we did a great job of just staying in the moment, not getting too flustered when they went on a run. And at the end of the day, we did a great job taking care of the ball. I think it was, what, 11 turnovers. That’s good, and that’s going win us a lot of basketball games. If we can cut down on turnovers, and more importantly, executing down the stretch. That won us the game.”
De’Andre Hunter shined once again off the bench for Atlanta. He scored 26 points, while shooting 56% from the floor.
“And really the measure is not so much what we run as what kind of shots we get, whether we take care of the ball,” Snyder explained. “That’s an area that we’ve continued to try to emphasize and work on.
The Hawks will travel to Toronto to start a pivotal a six-game road trip. After facing the Raptors, the Hawks will travel west. They’ll face the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns over the next twelve days.
