Injury Report: Hawks vs Nets

Can the Hawks avenge their loss from yesterday and defeat the Brooklyn Nets?

The Hawks were blown out by the Brooklyn Nets last night and they will get a chance to avenge their loss tomorrow afternoon in their final regular season matchup with them. Ahead of tomorrow's game, the Hawks have released their injury report and it is the same as it was before the first game. 

Onyeka Okongwu (left big toe sprain/sesamoiditis) and Trae Young (left fifth finger torn ligament) are out tomorrow.

An @emoryhealthcare injury report for tomorrow’s game at Brooklyn:

Onyeka Okongwu (left big toe sprain/sesamoiditis): Out
Trae Young (left fifth finger torn ligament): Out pic.twitter.com/3JYKkG0UXW

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) March 1, 2024

Brooklyn ran away from the Hawks in the second half and cut Atlanta's lead for the No. 10 spot to three games, making Saturday's game very important. If Atlanta wins on Saturday, the lead for No. 10 will go back to four games. If the Nets win, the lead will be cut to two games and they will own the tiebreaker over Atlanta. The Hawks could use a win on Saturday.

The Hawks cut a big 1st quarter defecit to only six points at halftime despite the Nets shooting well from three. The hope was that Brooklyn would not shoot as well in the second half and the Hawks could find a way to win the game.

The Nets did not cool off though.

Brooklyn was 22-26 from three, while the Hawks were only 8-28. When a team makes 14 more three-pointers than you do, it is going to be tough to win that game. The Nets had huge performances from Cam Johnson (7-11 from three, 29 points), as well as former Hawks Dennis Schroder (23 points on 5-7 shooting from three). Outside of Dejounte Murray, the Hawks could not find a way to generate any offense last night. 

Aside from Murray, no one on the Hawks could find a way to get anything going on offense. While the Hawks were not perfect on offense in the first two games without Young, they did a good enough job and played well on defense to get a win. When the defense is as bad is it was last night, the offense has to be better and it was not.

The Hawks miss Young's offensive capabilites and not even in the scoring sense. He finds ways to get his teammates easy shots and makes defenses cover him from everywhere on the court. Dejounte Murray is a good player, but he is not going to do that. While Young is out, Bogdan Bogdanovic and others are going to have to step up. It can't be Murray and Jalen Johnson all the time. Young is going to be out for a while and the Hawks have to find a way to be better on offense or they will risk falling out of the play-in tournament. 

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