The Atlanta Hawks (12-31) beat San Antonio Spurs (29-16) in a wild finish 102:99. Dennis Schröder played another strong game and was there several times during the crunchtime. The Spurs had to manage without Kawhi Leonard and after a short time without Manu Ginobili.
Kawhi Leonard left the Spurs with renewed problems at the quadriceps. Whether it was just a precautionary measure was not clearly communicated. This kind of injury had already cost him the first 27 games of the season, he is now listed as Day-to-Day. For him Kyle Anderson slipped into the Starting Five. During the first quarter, the Spurs also lost Manu Ginobili for the rest of the game after he was slightly injured on his thigh.
The Hawks didn’t have to change anything, but Marco Belinelli came back from the bench for the first time after suffering an ankle injury. From there, he saw his team fall behind early on as LaMarcus Aldridge quickly scored 9 points and the Hawks lost the ball several times. So it was 18:4 for San Antonio in the blink of an eye – to which the Hawks replied with a 17:2 run. The bank formation was primarily responsible for this.
The NBA live at SPOX! All games in the LIVESTREAM calendar!
That was it with the big runs on both sides – the Hawks didn’t have any problems keeping up with the decimated spurs in this phase. Dennis Schröder thawed slowly and played out his speed against Tony Parker several times. Shortly before the half time, Belinelli was back again with two three strikes – 48:45 for San Antonio for a break tea.
Own points as well as strong drafts of Dennis brought the Hawks with 6 points in front during the third quarter. In addition to Schröder, role-players such as Ersan Ilyasova and Belinelli have also repeatedly set accents. Nevertheless, it was the Spurs who took a tight lead (73:72) into the final section.
In this one, the Spurs repeatedly failed to secure the defensive rebound. The hosts regained the lead through Second Chance Points. Schröder also took on responsibility and, thanks to his drives, came to the board or the end by pullup. A problem of the Hawks: they had collected 5 team fouls early on, which made the Spurs come off the line to success. This resulted in an exciting crunchtime.
Dewayne Dedmon scored a 94:89 Hustley play with foul, but LMA also scored a three-point game. The answer came from Schröder in half distance (at 38 seconds). Danny Green met from downtown to 95:96 from Spurs point of view, but again Schröder countered, this time by layup to 98:95. Mills and Dedmon alternated with successful free throws (8.4 seconds).
Then it got wild: Ilyasova fouled Anderson while he wanted to run free. His luck: It was considered a normal foul because the ball had just been thrown in. Anderson met both freebies for 99:100. Now Schröder was fouled, who also showed no nerves and both attempts hit 102:99 (7.1 seconds). Now the Hawks didn’t foul any more and defended Green’s attempt at a threesome so that he didn’t get in! What a finish.
The strong Schröder finished the game with 26 points (10/20 FG), 5 rebounds and 6 assists. Ilyasova hung up 20 points. Top scorer of the Spurs was Aldridge (25 points, 11 rebounds). Mills and Anderson came in at 13 points each.
Hawks vs. Spurs: Click here for the BOXSCORE!
Dennis Schröder. His career high of 34 points against the Nets in the last game was not rewarded with a win, but today he delivered both: a great individual performance and victory as a team. He certainly didn’t play flawlessly (5 TO at 6 Assists), but he was the definition of clutch in crunchtime. He had an answer to every attempt by the Spurs to tilt the game – in many different ways. In the fourth quarter alone, he scored 12 points (5/7 FG) and struck the deciding free-throwers. Pretty strong!
Tony Parker. He looked very old against the speed of Schröder several times. If his team failed to hide him in the defense, he was a big weakness. He also did not do much offensively (6 points, 3/8 FG), 4 assists. In the Crunchtime Pop bet on Mills.
Should one end up fouling at three points or not? The basketball philosophers of the world have been asking this question for years. Coach Budenholzer opted for a mixture: When Pop painted a play on the Spurs in a time-out, the Hawks then interrupted it with a foul. And when the Spurs had no more time off after alternating free throws, Atlanta defended “regularly” – and only allowed an emergency throw after a full court sprint. That’s how it’s done!