The 1 thing Trae Young knows Hawks needs to improve in crunch time

ATLANTA, GA – It wasn’t like the last game, but the result was the same. The Atlanta Hawks trailed for most of the first game against the Chicago Bulls two days ago, but they were able to give themselves a chance late. Unfortunately, they fell 152-150, with another chance of getting revenge in the next 48 hours.

This time around, the Hawks led for most of the game, and it looked like they were on their way to getting that revenge. They had a 117-107 lead with 5:50 left in the fourth quarter, and from there, the Bulls walked them down. The Hawks couldn’t make any shots, they turned the ball over, and the Bulls did almost everything right. They took the lead, and they took another win from the Hawks, as the home team fell 126-123.

Trae Young and Jalen Johnson were once again key for the Hawks, but down the stretch, it was hard to know who was supposed to take over. For over a month, it’s been Johnson who has been the guy down the stretch, but with Young back, things have changed just a little. After the game, Young spoke about what the Hawks needed to do to improve late in games.

“Reps. Not very many teams have been able to just add a lot of guys and just stack guys and then just be all successful after one year,” Young said after the game. “Jalen wasn’t healthy in the second half last year. I haven’t been necessarily healthy to begin this season. We’re just now getting a chance to kind of play with each other, and unfortunately, we lose to teams like this. But this is part of the process. As much as it sucks, you gotta go through it, so you gotta learn from this.”

In the three games that Young has played in since returning, they have all come down to the wire. Young didn’t close the game against the Charlotte Hornets, but he’s closed the last two against the Bulls, and they’ve all resulted in losses.

Hawks can’t execute late down the stretch against the Bulls

The Hawks still had a chance to win late, but they had to get a stop with the game tied at 123 with 1.9 seconds left. Unfortunately, Zaccharie Risacher got tangled up with Coby White, and the refs called an off-ball foul, sending White to the free throw line, and then getting the ball back.

It was a tough call to decide the game, but the Hawks couldn’t do anything about it.

“He grabbed his arm and pulled him down,” head coach Quin Snyder said. “You guys can see it. It’s not hard to see. I don’t know what you can do about that, but it’s unfortunate. You don’t want the game to be won or lost over a call like that. I’m sure they’ll have a two-minute report, and presumably they’ll talk about it. He just grabbed his arm and pulled him into him. We put ourselves in a position where that can happen. You want to not be in position we have to get a stop on the last possession. That’s what I saw.”

That’s not the reason why the Hawks didn’t win the game, because they had ample opportunities to close it out.

“We didn’t get enough stops at the end of quarters,” Nickeil Alexander-Walker said. “The end of the third, we did a good job of bringing it to 15, 13. We just didn’t get enough stops down the stretch; we went cold. That drought is when we have to get stops more than ever. If we’re not scoring, it has to be imperative that they’re not scoring.

“I know guys care, I know we’re capable of doing it. We just have to do it consistently. We’ve shown it. When the game really distanced itself, we held them to a 25-point quarter. That’s what we’re capable of doing, so we have to find a way to consistently do that.”

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