Hawks forget route to court from halftime locker room, lose 121-98

Goodness, that third quarter was ugly.

It was a night of reunions as both Bogdan Bogdanovic and Terance Mann faced their respective past teams tonight in State Farm Arena. With the Los Angeles Clippers in town, there was a lot of love shown to ‘Bogi’, but the Hawks still needed to take care of business against James Harden, Kawhi Leonard, and others.

It was a wild affair early on with scoring and transition play initiated by the Hawks pickpocketing Los Angeles three times in the first three minutes. Here was one such example, started by none other than the league leader in steals, of course:

Mouhamed Gueye was also very busy early on:

Atlanta left a few points on the table with misses at the rim, but they played solidly on both ends otherwise and jumped out to a 22-15 lead with three minutes left in the quarter.

Atlanta let the Clippers pull back closer in the final stages of the period, and they could only take a 26-24 edge into the second quarter.

The Hawks continued to fight, with some key contributions from Vit Krejci and Zaccharie Risacher keeping the good guys above water. The rook, in particular, flashed some good awareness in moving off ball for these pair of buckets:

The Czech Connect did his thing as well:

Still, Harden, Leonard and Bogi matched the Hawks’ offensive execution on the other end and continuously battled back, even retaking the lead at times.

But Atlanta surged ahead with a 9-0 run after the game was knotted at 48-48 late in the second quarter. At the halftime break, the Hawks led 61-53. Zaccharie Risacher led the way with 13 points on 5-for-5 shooting from the field.

In the third quarter, the Hawks came out sloppy and unorganized, and the Clippers went on an immediate 10-0 run to take the lead. Trae Young and Dyson Daniels were both struggling from the field, as they began the game a combined 3-for-19 (16%) from the field and 0-for-7 from three.

Things just avalanched from there, as the offense went anemic and didn’t regain footing until the Clippers had a solid double-digit lead. That dry spell gave the Clips a big runway towards getting out in transition and getting easy points. There was even a 19-0 run mixed in there.

After a 35-8 quarter, Los Angeles led big, 88-69. The Hawks could only muster a 29.6 offensive rating — eight puny points on 27 possessions that quarter.

Clearly, with a mountain to climb in the fourth, the Hawks would need a miracle comeback starting immediately.

The basketball gods did not bless them. They lost 121-98 in what was far from a nailbiter.

Onyeka Okongwu finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Zaccharie Risacher added 17 points, seven rebounds and two assist.

The Hawks will try to have a short memory about this game as they head to Brooklyn for a Sunday evening game.