SACRAMENTO -- The Hawks rebounded from their loss a night before with a 109-108 win over the Kings at the Golden 1 Center on Monday night with a dramatic ending.
Here are five observations:
1. The Hawks escaped with a win despite blowing a 16-point early lead. They then battled back and forth with the Kings before grabbing a four-point lead with just under two minutes to play.
Then the Hawks miscommunicated and Trae Young turned the ball over out of bounds and Garrison Mathews clipped Kings guard Keon Ellis on a screen, putting the Hawks in the penalty. Ellis made both free throws to cut the Hawks’ lead to 109-108.
Out of a timeout, the Hawks once again misstepped, dribbling down the shot clock before Young found De’Andre Hunter in the corner. His Hail Mary didn’t fall.
The Kings had a chance.
Dyson Daniels saved the narrow victory when he stripped De’Aaron Fox’s attempt at a game-winner. The Hawks celebrated.
After the buzzer, the Kings’ game operations crew showed the play on the Jumbotron and highlighted Daniels’ foot being on the end line as he fell out of bounds with the ball. The officials opted not to review the play.
2. Young scored just seven points but dished out a season-high 19 assists while minimizing his turnovers through the first three quarters. The Hawks guard vowed to make better reads after the loss to the Trail Blazers on Sunday.
“I know it’s going to come back, my shot, but I didn’t want to force anything tonight at all and just wanted to let all my shots come to me,” Young said. “And, try to get everybody involved early and that’s what I did and it started out great and got us a big lead and I want to keep doing that all game.”
It helped that he had plenty of help from his receivers, which Hawks coach Quin Snyder said the team needed to improve on.
Young’s assists netted the Hawks 46 points and they came in the clutch. With 4:42 left, he found Clint Capela with a lob for assist number 18 and that cut the Kings’ lead to one. On assist No. 19, Young found Hunter for a midrange jumper that gave the Hawks the lead for the remainder of the game.
“Every game is going to be a little different,” Snyder said. “And for him to understand that there may be a game he doesn’t get that many assists, a game he scores more, and vice versa. So, excellent job by Trae finding people and making plays even though it wasn’t him scoring. That’s what he needs to do.”
3. The Kings’ explosive shooting began with Ellis getting hot, hitting six 3-pointers in his first 16 minutes. His first 3 kicked off a 22-8 run that initially cut the early Hawks’ lead to one by the end of the first quarter.
Ellis’s hot streak continued into the second frame as he helped set the Kings up with a 48-40 lead before he missed his first attempt of the quarter.
He ended the night with a career-high nine 3-pointers, overtaking his previous career-high with 5:00 still to play in the third quarter. He scored a career-high 33 points.
“A really good (player) that can shoot,” Snyder said. “You know, 6 of 8, I think, from 3 and he hit a couple where we guarded him, but he was on the back end of breakdowns that we had and made us pay.”
4. While the Hawks couldn’t completely slow down the Kings’ outside shooting, they had some offensive power from Hunter after he returned to the lineup for the second night of back-to-back games.
Hunter picked up where he left off in last Friday’s win, scoring 24 points off the bench with several key jumpers including a baseline midrange jumper that put the Hawks up by a point with 3:47 to play, then a triple at the top of the key that extended the lead to 105-101 just over 20 seconds later.
The Hawks forward looked comfortable, making nine of his 15 shots from the floor.
5. While the Kings had several of their rotation players in DeMar DeRozan, Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk out, the Hawks saw the return of two of their key players in Bogdan Bogdanovic and Kobe Bufkin.
The return of the two guards proved more critical than the Hawks would have imagined before the game after they ruled out forward Jalen Johnson just 15 minutes before tipoff.
Stat to know
19 -- Trae Young dished out the most assists in a game so far this season.
Quotable
“When I’m out there, I just try to make the most of it.” -- De’Andre Hunter on showing emotion Monday.
Up next
The Hawks face the Warriors on Wednesday at Chase Arena in San Francisco.
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