Hawks flop in 127-88 home loss to Grizzlies

The Atlanta Hawks hosted the Memphis Grizzlies Monday night coming off a two-game home sweep of Brooklyn and Portland over the weekend. Memphis arrived off a big win of their own, toppling the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday.

Both teams entered the contest a bit hobbled, with the Hawks missing Cam Reddish, DeAndre’ Bembry, Clint Capela, Skal Labissiere and Dewayne Dedmon.

The Grizzlies were without Jaren Jackson Jr., Brandon Clarke, Justice Winslow and Grayson Allen.

The Hawks got out to a 4-0 start as neither team came out clicking. Memphis failed to score in the first 4:09 of play.

Atlanta led 9-2 at the 7:29 mark in the first, with the Grizzlies opened the game 1-for-12 from the floor, while the Hawks did not start much better, opening 4-of-15.

Neither team shot well at all in the opening quarter, with both clubs hovering around the 30% mark from the floor after 12 minutes. Memphis led 24-23 heading to the second.

In a bit of an interesting moment that someone encapsulated the lack of offensive in the first half, Josh Jackson missed a breakaway, uncontested dunk on a fast break.

A 15-0 run from Memphis gave the Grizzlies a 39-27 lead nearly halfway into the second quarter. The Hawks were shooting 25% from the field nearly 18 minutes into play. The Hawks offensive vanished for the bulk of the second quarter after being well below average to start the game.

Atlanta clawed back into the game late in the second with 14-3 run to close the quarter, trailing by only five at the break. To put punctuation on how the first half went offensively on both sides, here’s Dillon Brooks missing two wide open layups:

Memphis used a 20-3 run to retake control of the game in the third, leading 75-56 with 4:30 left in the quarter. The Hawks scored just seven points in the the first 7:30 of the the third.

Vince Carter hit a three just under the four-minute mark— his second triple of the evening— to cut the deficit to 77-61 in favor of Memphis. Atlanta was largely flat offensively, shooting just 31% over 30 minutes into the game.

The Hawks were unable to cut further into the margin in the remainder of the third, trailing 84-68 heading to the fourth.

Memphis opened the fourth on a 6-0 run and lead by 22 early in the quarter. The lead ballooned to 103-72 with 7:45 remaining. The Grizzlies kept scoring from there, and never relinquished control of the game in the final period. It was an all-around disappointing performance for Atlanta, with the starters shooting a combined 13-for-53 (24.5%) in the first three quarters.

Gorgui Dieng (17) and Jackson (16) led all scorers for a balanced Grizzlies attack in the 127-88 win. Morant had 13 points, and nine Memphis players reached double-figures in a dominant showing.

Young had one of his shakier performances of the season, not unlike many of his teammates, scoring just 19 points (on 5 of 17 shooting) and dishing out two assists. Collins had just 12 points and three rebounds, while Huerter added 13 points and five assists.

The Hawks will have three days off before playing the Wizards in Washington on Friday evening.