The first thing Trae Young knows Atlanta needs to improve on

ATLANTA, Ga. – It wasn’t like the last game, but the result was the same. The Atlanta Hawks lagged behind the majority first game against the Chicago Bulls two days ago, but they could give a chance late on. Unfortunately, they fell 152-150, with another chance for revenge in the next 48 hours.

This time, the Hawks led most of the game and looked like they were on their way to revenge. They led 117-107 with 5:50 left in the fourth quarter, and the Bulls put them away from there. The Hawks couldn’t hit, they turned the ball over, and the Bulls did almost everything right. They took the lead and took another win from the Hawks, as the home team lost 126-123.

Trae Young and Jaylen Johnson were again key for the Hawks, but down the stretch, it was hard to know who should have taken over. For more than a month, Johnson was the go-to guy, but with Young back, things have changed just a little. After the game, Young talked about what the Hawks need to do to improve late in games.

“The introductions. Not many teams have been able to just add a lot of guys and just stack guys and then have them all be successful after a year,” Young said after the game. “Jalen wasn’t healthy in the second half of last year. I wasn’t necessarily healthy to start this season. We’re just now getting a chance to play each other, and unfortunately, we’re losing to teams like this. But this is part of the process. As much as it sucks, you’ve got to go through it, so you’ve got to learn from it.”

In the three games Young has played in since returning, they’ve all come down to the wire. Young didn’t shut out the game against the Charlotte Hornets, but he did shut out the last two against the Bulls, all of which resulted in losses.

The Hawks can’t pull it off late down the stretch against the Bulls

The Hawks still had a chance to win late, but had to put the game away with the game tied at 123 with 1.9 seconds left. Unfortunately, Zaccharie Risacher tangled with Kobe White, and the officials called an off-ball foul, sending White to the free throw line and then recovering the ball.

It was a tough call to decide the game, but there was nothing the Hawks could do about it.

“He grabbed his arm and pulled him down,” head coach Quin Snyder said. “You see it. It’s not hard to see. I don’t know what you can do about it, but it’s unfortunate. You don’t want a game to be won or lost because of a call like that. I’m sure they’ll have a two-minute report, and they’ll probably talk about it. He just grabbed his arm and pulled him into a position where that could happen. We’ve got to stop the last possession.”

That’s not why the Hawks didn’t win the game, because they had plenty of opportunities to close it out.

“We didn’t get enough stops at the end of the quarter,” Nickeil Alexander-Walker said. “Late third, we did a good job of getting it up 15, 13. We just didn’t get enough stops down the stretch; we went cold. That drought is when we have to get stops more than ever. If we don’t score, it has to be imperative that they don’t score.”

“I know the guys care, I know we’re capable of doing it. We just have to do it consistently. We showed it. When the game really got going, we held them to a 25-point quarter. That’s what we’re capable of doing, so we’ve got to find a way to do it consistently.”