Young, LeVert go silly in Philly as Hawks lock up eighth seed, 124-110

Job well done.

Atlanta embarked on the last leg of their last regular season road trip of the season. Their final opponent? A Philadelphia 76ers team missing roughly their seven best players and more, leaving them with just eight players available.

While the undermanned Sixers got off to a much better start than the undermanned Nets did a night ago, Atlanta has too much talent to even flirt with dropping this contest.

Zaccharie Risacher built upon his huge 38-point night with some early buckets in transition:

It was a tight contest early, however, as Philadelphia’s skeleton crew were able to match score for score with Atlanta.

The bench came in and made an impact, like on this wide open Terance Mann triple:

Atlanta’s real issue was on the defensive end, giving up too many cuts and drives to the basket. But with a short Sixers rotation, it would be likely the home team runs out of gas later in the contest.

After one quarter, the Hawks led 29-26.

Newsflash: Trae Young can still make some ridiculous shots. This early second quarter three was tough:

Mouhamed Gueye also made an impact defensively — with this one leading to an easy score:

Still, the Hawks couldn’t quite shake the Sixers, and the lead passed back and forth throughout the second period. Towards the end of the half, however, young players Marcus Bagley and Jared Butler caught fire and burned the Hawks from deep. Philadelphia was able to take a lead behind their hot shooting, although Atlanta never fell too far behind,

At half, the scoreline was 66-60.

Coming out of the gates in the second half, Atlanta picked up their energy on both ends of the floor. They almost immediately erased the deficit behind an 8-2 run.

Young and Risacher link up here for another Trae Bien finish:

Then Young does all the scoring by himself:

The Hawks still couldn’t quite shake the feisty Sixers, and it looked increasingly like the game would come down to the final minutes of play.

After three quarter, the Hawks reversed the halftime hole and led 91-85.

Caris LeVert was a big reason for the turnaround for Atlanta. He was a perfect 7-for-7 from the field in the first half, and he didn’t slow down much in the second half either.

Atlanta took firm control of the game by the fourth quarter, with some big contributions from Young’s scoring and passing. Young caught on fire in the fourth especially, getting downhill to the rim and stepping back for some long bombs:

The Hawks calmly put things away in Philadelphia to pick up their 39th win of the season and secure the 8-seed in the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament.

Atlanta won their road finale 124-110. Trae Young finished with 36 points and 11 assists. Caris LeVert poured in 31 points on 12-for-15 (80%) shooting in 30 minutes off the bench. Mouhamed Gueye added 10 points and 18 rebounds also off the bench.

With little to play for, the Hawks come home to take on the Magic at 1 PM EST on Sunday in the season ender in a game that will likely feature the reserves.