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

The Dallas Mavericks found themselves without Luka Doncic, Klay Thompson, Quentin Grimes and Dante Exum on their second night in a row after going to overtime in an overtime loss to the Miami Heat last night. This was a great opportunity for the Hawks to win at home and end their three-game losing streak, but they couldn’t capitalize on the opportunity. There have been many inexcusable losses for the Hawks this year, but tonight was one of the worst. The Hawks had every reason to win this game, but they didn’t get it done. 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 have been more committed than the Hawks, and it’s been costly.

Dallas outscored the Hawks 68-52 in the second half, and when a team normally plays back-to-back games, they may run out of gas in the second half. That wasn’t true tonight. Irving scored 22 of his 32 points in the second half tonight, including 16 in the fourth quarter. Atlanta did as good a job as they could early on protecting a great scorer like Irving, but in the second half they started making shots.

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 great performance in the second half, scoring 14 points and shooting 4-6 from three.

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

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

Dyson Daniels was well positioned early in the game, scoring 13 points in the first half, but only managed four in the second half and played no role offensively.

It was a tough night for Zaccharie Risacher and De’Andre Hunter. Hunter played most of the time tonight, but was 3:11 from the field and only scored nine points. Risacher scored five points in 16 minutes.

The center position was once again a problem for the Hawks. Clint Capela was the best tonight, but Onyeka Okongwu had another bad game. He scored eight points and had seven rebounds, but was -19 from the field.

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

The story of the game was that the Hawks allowed another team to test their role players and get hot while they themselves had a poor shooting night from three. It seems to happen in almost every Hawks game, and tonight was no different. Hardy scored his season high 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 early in the game and their top five was Kyrie Irving, Jaden Hardy, Naji Marshall, PJ Washington and Dereck Lively.

The Hawks defense got off to a very good start and led to a good offense. Atlanta went on a 12-4 run early in the game, holding Dallas to 1-for-6 shooting from the field and forcing three early turnovers, one of which led to an early highlight by Jalen Johnson.

That wasn’t the only sales highlight in the first quarter. Dallas continued to struggle on offense and a poor pass led to a basket for Bogdan Bogdanovic.

Atlanta led by as many as 13 in the first quarter, but the Mavs finished the game strong. A big reason for this was the fact that they were 7-7 at the free throw line and shot 43% (3-7) from three. The Hawks, who have struggled with three-point shots this season, were 29% from long range in the first quarter. Towards the end of the quarter, Dallas managed to tighten the game and Atlanta led 31-28 at the start of the second quarter.

The Mavs carried that momentum into the second quarter and the Hawks struggled to get anything going on offense. Dallas continued to fight back for the lead and ultimately came away with the victory thanks in large part to the play of Jaden Hardy. With Doncic, Thompson, Grimes and Exum out, someone had to step in alongside Kyrie Irving, and in the first half it was Hardy. He scored ten points in the quarter and also had two steals.

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

Until the Hawks got going again.

Atlanta ended the half with a 12-0 run to retake the lead, and the Hawks led 67-61 at halftime. The half ended great with Jalen Johnson, Dyson Daniels and Trae Young leading the attack.

At the end of the first half, Atlanta was shooting 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. 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% in the third half. Hardy led Dallas with 15 points.

The Hawks started the third quarter much like they ended the first half. They extended the lead 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 didn’t let up. Not if Spencer Dinwiddie had anything to say about it. This season has been a struggle for Dinwiddie so far, but predictably he came into action tonight against the Hawks, going 3-4 from three in the third quarter and scoring nine points. Marshall added seven