Trae Young scored 35 points, Clint Capela had 18 points and a season-high 23 rebounds, and the Hawks rallied from a 16-point deficit for a 121-118 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night in Cleveland.
Next up, the Hawks play in Portland on Monday night.
Below are some takeaways from the win:
1. The Hawks snapped a three-game losing streak despite having 12 players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, including power forward John Collins and guards Bogdan Bogdanovic and Kevin Huerter. The Hawks also lost Cam Reddish in the first quarter with a sprained right ankle.
2. Young made a pair of free throws with 7.6 seconds left after Cleveland had pulled within 119-118 on a Brandon Goodwin layup. Kevin Pangos’ potential tying 3-pointer at the buzzer was off the mark.
Young, who also had 11 assists, drained a 3-pointer with 1:53 remaining to give the Hawks their largest advantage at 119-111.
“There are only a couple of us from our full roster on this team, but we’re really trying to find ways to win,” Young said. “It was a great way to end the year. We had a lot of success in 2021 and we expect to have even more success in 2022.”
Cleveland led 60-44 late in the second quarter, buoyed by Jarrett Allen coming out of COVID protocols after missing four games. Rookie Evan Mobley had 16 points, eight rebounds and five assists, and Brandon Goodwin had 13 points in his Cavaliers debut. Goodwin, a former Hawks player, signed a 10-day contract with the Cavs via a hardship exception and was the first Cleveland player off the bench.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The Hawks roared back in the third, outscoring Cleveland 40-22 behind 12 points and seven assists from Young, and eight points and nine rebounds from Capela. Young put them ahead for good at 87-86 with a 3-pointer.
“These games are just grind games, so we knew we had to stay the course,” Capela said. “We had to expose their weaknesses by finding our guys, like Trae, for open shots.”
Cleveland went 8 of 14 from the foul line in the fourth, when Young and Williams combined to go 8 of 8 for the Hawks.
“We were complacent because we had a lead, but you have to understand they’ve got winners over there who just went to the Eastern Conference finals,” Cleveland coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “We let our guard down and it came back to bite us.”
3. Skylar Mays added 19 points and Lou Williams had 14 points off the bench for the Hawks, who are 1-1 on a six-game trip that ends Jan. 9 against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Kevin Love scored a season-high 35 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for Cleveland, and Allen had 21 points and eight rebounds.
4. Hawks coach Nate McMillan has 703 career victories, four shy of tying John MacLeod for 18th place all-time.
5. G League official Clare Aubry became the 14th woman to referee an NBA game, and was one of three officials to make their debut Friday as a result of widespread illnesses among full-time staffers.
Stat of the game: 23 (the number of rebounds for Clint Capela, who also scored 18 points. Capela was a force on both ends with 11 offensive rebounds and 12 on the defensive end.
Star of the game: Trae Young had 35 points and 11 assists. He leads the NBA with 17 point/assist double-doubles and 11 games of at least 25 points and 10 assists this season.
Quotable: “Clint and Trae set the tone yesterday in practice and they did it again tonight. It was a challenge to them to show that we’re better than what we’ve been playing like.” -- Hawks coach Nate McMillan said.
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