Kyrie Irving comes alive in the 4th quarter as Dallas defeats Atlanta 129-119

The Dallas Mavericks were on the second night of a back-to-back after going to overtime in a loss to the Miami Heat last night, and they were without Luka Doncic, Klay Thompson, Quentin Grimes and Dante Exum. This was a great opportunity for the Hawks to win at home to end their three-game losing streak, but they couldn’t capitalize on the opportunity. There have been many unforgivable losses this year for the Hawks, but tonight was one of the worst. The Hawks had every reason to win this game, but they didn’t. What makes the loss even harder to take is the fact that Mavs star Kyrie Irving didn’t shoot well in the game until the 4th quarter. The Mavs role players stepped up more than the Hawks did and it was costly.

Dallas outscored the Hawks 68-52 in the second half, and typically when a team is back-to-back, they can run out of gas in the second half. That was not true tonight. Irving scored 22 of his 32 points tonight in the second half, 16 of which came in the 4th quarter. Atlanta did as good a job as you can get early guarding a big scorer like Irving, but he started making shots in the second half.

The role players for Dallas stepped up tonight. They got 23 points from Jaden Hardy, 22 points from Spencer Dinwiddie and 22 points from Naji Marshall. Dinwiddie also had a huge second half, scoring 14 points and shooting 4-6 from three.

It was another rough night for the Hawks and another night where they didn’t shoot well from three. The Mavericks made seven more threes than Atlanta did tonight, and that’s becoming a theme of the Hawks season so far. They have not been a good three-point shooting team and have been consistently outscored every game.

Jalen Johnson was the Hawks’ best player tonight, scoring 28 points on 12-20 shooting and grabbing 11 rebounds. Trae Young also chipped in a double-double, scoring 18 points and dishing out 16 assists.

Dyson Daniels started the game and scored 13 points in the first half, but only managed four in the second half and wasn’t a factor offensively.

It was a rough night for both Zaccharie Risacher and De’Andre Hunter. Hunter played most of the minutes tonight, but was 3-11 from the field and scored just nine points. Risacher had five points in 16 minutes.

The center position was again a problem for the Hawks. Clint Capela was at his best tonight, but Onyeka Okongwu again had a poor game. He scored eight points and had seven rebounds, but was a -19 when he was on the court.

Bogdan Bogdanovcic was the best player off the bench and had a good night offensively, but struggled on the offensive end. Bogdanovic scored 18 points on 8-15 shooting. Kobe Bufkin played just 13 minutes and had four points, four rebounds and four assists.

The story of the game was the Hawks allowing another team to have its role players step up and get hot while having a poor shooting night from three themselves. It seems to happen in almost every Hawks game and tonight was no different. Hardy tied his season high in points tonight, as did Dinwiddie.

Let’s recap another tough loss for the Hawks.

The Hawks kept their same starting lineup of Trae Young, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and Clint Capela.

Dallas was very shorthanded coming into the game and their starting five was Kyrie Irving, Jaden Hardy, Naji Marshall, PJ Washington and Dereck Lively.

The Hawks defense got off to a very good start and that led to good offense. Atlanta jumped out on a 12-4 run to start the game and held Dallas to 1-6 shooting from the floor, and they forced three early turnovers, one of which led to an early Jalen Johnson highlight.

That was not the only highlight of a turnover in the first quarter. Dallas continued to struggle on offense and a bad pass led to a basket to Bogdan Bogdanovic.

Atlanta led by as many as 13 in the opening quarter, but the Mavs finished strong. A big reason for that was that they went 7-7 at the free throw line and shot 43% (3-7) from three. The Hawks, who have struggled to shoot from three this season, were 29% from deep in the first quarter. Dallas was able to tighten up as the quarter ended and Atlanta led 31-28 entering the second.

The Mavs carried that momentum into the second quarter and the Hawks struggled to get anything going on offense. Dallas kept chipping away at the lead and eventually came around, in large part to the play of Jaden Hardy. With Doncic, Thompson, Grimes and Exum out, someone had to step up alongside Kyrie Irving, and in the first half it was Hardy. He scored 10 points in the quarter and also had two steals.

With 4:06 left in the first half, Dallas led Atlanta 56-50 and was slowly taking control of the game.

Until the Hawks got going again.

Atlanta closed the half on a 12-0 run to regain the lead, and the Hawks led 67-61 at halftime. It was very close at halftime and it was Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Trae Young leading the offense.

At the end of the first half, Atlanta shot 51% from the field and 25% from three. Johnson had 15 points and eight rebounds, Daniels had 13 points on 5-7 shooting and Young had 10 points and seven assists. The three-point shooting was still an issue, but the Hawks made up for it in other areas

Dallas shot 41% in the first half and 38% from three. Hardy led Dallas with 15 points.

The Hawks started the third quarter much like they ended the first half. They got the lead up to 11 with 9:34 left in the quarter and Jason Kidd wanted to call a timeout. It felt like the Hawks were starting to take control of the game, but the Mavs wouldn’t go away. Not if Spencer Dinwiddie had anything to say about it. This season has been a struggle so far for Dinwiddie, but he predictably came alive against the Hawks tonight, going 3-4 from three in the third quarter and scoring nine points. Marshall added in seven