Dennis Schröder has set a new personal best score of 41 points in the Utah Jazz game of his Atlanta Hawks. The German point guard thus provided a sense of achievement for his team that is probably not desired at all. Nevertheless, there is a lot of praise from his coach.
The last few weeks have not always been easy for Dennis Schröder. The Atlanta Hawks are bobbing around in the Eastern Conference mire (score: 21-50) and seem to have more interest in as many ping-pong balls as possible in the draft lottery than in a few victories in the regular season.
As a result, the German international ended his day early more often than he would have liked. The best example of this was the game at the beginning of March against the Phoenix Suns, the counterpart of the Hawks in the Western, when the “Tanking Showdown” took place. Schröder had a hot hand and already in the middle of the third quarter 21 points in the account. Coach Mike Budenholzer pulled the emergency brake and let his best player stew on the bench for the remaining 18 minutes.
This did not help. Although the Hawks felt they were doing everything to lose, Taurean Prince scored a wild pull-up triple a few seconds before the end – Atlanta won. As a result, there were no longer any such “slips”. The Hawks lost the next six games, Schröder played 25, 34 minutes, but mostly a few turns of the hands when a game was on the edge.
The away game in Utah was different now. Schröder stood the whole final quarter on the field and put his stamp on the game. Utah had previously won nine games in a row, or 22 of the last 25 games, and in 2018 they had by far the best defense in the entire league (defensive rating: 98.6).
But that did not prevent Schröder from dominating completely. Both Ricky Rubio and Joe Ingles were unable to counter the speed and the potential defensive player of the year, Rudy Gobert, often came too late with his help.
However, the German laid the foundation for his 41 points in the first half when Schröder scored four of his seven jump shots. A good sign: While the throw from the middle distance fell very passably this year (44.4 percent), the three-man Schröder caused some problems. 29.5 percent with almost 4 attempts per game are definitely not a good yield.
But when the distance throw is in place, there are completely different possibilities. At first, Ricky Rubio lost to the Braunschweig player, but when he scored, the Spaniard had to respect the throw and defend it tighter. However, as Schröder is considerably faster than the Iberian, he repeatedly passed Jazz-Guard with ease, especially in the second half.
“He had a great overview today and did everything for us”, said coach Budenholzer, “Especially in the fourth quarter Schröder helped a lot that Atlanta surprised the hot jazz and won the quarter with 36:27.
Bud was also enthusiastic about Schröder’s defense, often a big point of criticism in the German game this season. There were certainly easier match-ups than Donovan Mitchell, but Schröder clung to the rookie and kept the shooting guard with only 8 points (2/8 FG) and 2 ball losses, “I wanted to prove that I could also defend against the best players,” Schröder said afterwards.
He asked me if he could take over and then he put Mitchell on the chain in the last four minutes” It seemed almost as if Schröder would approach it like a playoff game, there, on the big stage, where he could still convince especially last year. Together with Paul Millsap, he stood up to the Washington Wizards in the first play-off round, even though they were eliminated after six games.
However, Schröder also exaggerated a little towards the end in Salt Lake City. Two minutes before the end he committed a flagrant foul against Rubio, which Utah used to a total of 4 points and took the lead again (92:91).
But the point guard of the Hawks made it up to him again and brought his colours back into front with a heavy floater 37.5 seconds before the end, the Jazz could no longer answer. The German produced 17 points and 2 assists in the last 12 minutes and thus caused an unexpected, perhaps even undesired victory of the Hawks.
If Atlanta is still looking for a high position in the lottery, Schröder should probably be back on the bench in the fourth quarter of now. But perhaps this match represented a conciliatory end to the season at least for him – because he was able to show once again what he really is capable of. If you let him.