Trae Young calls out Hawks over Donovan Clingan issue in loss to Trail Blazers
Yesterday at 11:36 PM
ATLANTA – After coming off a big win against the Milwaukee Bucks where they were able to clinch a Play-In berth, the Atlanta Hawks were not able to keep that momentum going at home. The Portland Trail Blazers came into the State Farm Arena and won 127-113, dominating the Hawks on the boards.
Donovan Clingan was a big problem for the Hawks, as he finished with only seven rebounds, but his ability to keep plays alive on offense helped the Trail Blazers on the way to 32 second-chance points. After the game, Young was vocal about the impact Clingan had on the floor, which led to the Hawks losing.
"S—, there's a 7'5, 7'3 kid down there,” Young said. “I think there were a couple of times where we were boxing him out and he just had his hands up and we had to foul him. It's stuff that we can get better at, some of it is the luck of the basketball and how it falls off the rim. But we gotta do better."
The Trail Blazers kept the pressure on the Hawks the entire game, and at one point they led by 18 points. Young was getting picked up a full-court, which made the Hawks have to make quicker decisions.
“We just played too slow,” Young said. “Gotta give them credit, they kind of slowed us down, picking me up full, not letting us get out in transition. Anytime we did, we were able to score easily, anytime we played fast we were able to score easily. They did a good job to end the first half and really the second half. We just have to do a better job at executing and playing through physicality.”
Hawks can’t overcome Trail Blazers physicality in loss
Outside of getting outrebounded, the Hawks also coughed the ball up a lot during the game. As a team, the Trail Blazers present a lot of problems with how their team is built, and the Hawks couldn’t match up with them.
“19 turnovers and 19 offensive rebounds, that's a possession game. I thought their length and their size were certainly a factor,” head coach Quin Snyder said.
“It was a game of runs, they went on some runs,” Dyson Daniels said. “Too many turnovers, too many easy baskets for them. Obviously, they’re big and have size at every position. They do a really good job of being in the passing lanes and picking up. One of those games we needed to be really good to beat them, and we gave the ball up too much.”
The Hawks were able to make a run in the fourth quarter and cut their deficit down to as little as four points, but the Trail Blazers went back to dominating on the boards and making clutch shots. Deni Avdija finished with 32 points, 15 rebounds, and 10 assists, while Shaedon Sharpe finished with 33 points and 10 rebounds.
The Hawks can’t harp too much on this loss, because they’ll be in Dallas tomorrow to face the Mavericks.
“That's a part of the NBA, that's the best part about it,” Young said. “It's easy to feel good when you have a great game but you have to play in 24 hours so you can't feel too good about it because if you don't play good, then it doesn't mean anything. You can never get too high or too low in any moment of the season so right now I'm not going to get too low on a loss.”
The post Trae Young calls out Hawks over Donovan Clingan issue in loss to Trail Blazers appeared first on ClutchPoints.
