Despite their lacklustre record, the Hawks are notable for their ability to avoid blowouts. Atlanta has dropped a lot of close games and blown a lot of leads this season, but they hardly ever lose convincingly from the opening buzzer to the final one. That night was not this one. The Flying pacers dismantled the Hawks whom lost in the most humiliating way of the season—if not in recent memory. The offence was unable to score against what is perhaps the weakest defence in the NBA as the defensive problems reached a breaking point. Despite having the best offence in the NBA, the Pacers’ lacklustre defence tonight was unacceptable.
Atlanta was hoping to gain momentum with a second straight victory going into tonight’s match. While both teams were largely healthy, Atlanta continued to use Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson, and Clint Capela in their starting lineup. Tyrese Haliburton, Bruce Brown, Aaron Nesmith, Jalen Smith, and Myles Turner were the ones Indiana chose.
Indiana led by as many as thirty points for the majority of the second half. The Pacers made 15 straight shots at one point during tonight’s game. 15. After leading by 117 points after three quarters, they used up all of their reserves in the opening minutes of the fourth. For a while now, this game had ended, but that was essentially the official word. The result was a final score of 150-11. If you were the Hawks, this was the last thing you wanted to see. All of the league’s teams, including the Nuggets, Celtics, and other elite teams, have terrible games and sometimes lose badly. The Hawks’ effort tonight only made their issues seem worse.
