Atlanta, GA – The Hawks were shorthanded again tonight, but were hoping to pull off an upset against a healthy Sacramento team that was playing well heading into the game. They trailed by 18 points in the game, but fought back to tie it in the fourth quarter. However, they ran out of gas and lost their fourth straight game.

For three quarters, the Hawks defense was the same as usual, but they played their best defensive fourth quarter of the year, but it wasn’t enough. It was a combination of poor offense and fouls that derailed Atlanta’s chances late in the game. After tying it up 109-109 with less than six minutes remaining, the Hawks scored just six points the rest of the game and the duo of De’Aaron Fox and DeMar DeRozan closed out the game.

The Hawks offense didn’t have its best night, but they got huge contributions from Garrison Matthews off the bench, as well as Keaton Wallace. Matthews was arguably the Hawks’ best player tonight, scoring 23 points on 7-13 shooting from three. Keaton Wallace had 14 points on 4-8 from three and was also solid defensively down the stretch. Wallace and Matthews both closed out the game for Atlanta.

It wasn’t the most efficient night for Trae Young, but he played well. He scored 25 points and had 12 assists on 8-21 shooting and 3-9 from three. After the game, head coach Quin Snyder praised Young and the game he played tonight:

“Everyone should take out their pen and start writing about Trae Young because he was on balance with the officials from the start of the game, he got blitzed. He trusted his teammates, he wasn’t selfishly, he took the ball early from the shooters, then he started hitting Clint in the role. He managed the game, took control of the remaining six minutes of the game, and if anyone doesn’t look at his performance. tonight, and respect the mental toughness that he has to play with right now, when everything runs through him with admiration for his competitiveness and the confidence that he has in his teammates, he was– the guy was incredible and didn’t. It didn’t diminish the efforts of the other guys, but it was a hell of a performance and we shouldn’t lose sight of that because we lost the game, okay?

It was a mediocre night for Jalen Johnson. He scored 14 points on 4-10 shooting and also had nine assists along with five rebounds. It wasn’t a horrible night for Johnson, but he didn’t affect the game much.

Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu were solid for the Hawks tonight. Okongwu played the majority of the minutes, but Capela had the biggest workload tonight and had 15 points and 10 rebounds. Okongwu had 11 points and four rebounds.

It was probably the worst match of young Zacharie Risacher’s career. He hit the first basket of the entire game, but finished 1-9. Risacher may have affected the game in other ways this season, but this wasn’t one of those nights. He was the team’s worst -25 from the field and didn’t play in the fourth quarter. There are better nights ahead for Risacher, but this is a night he’ll want to forget.

The Hawks finished the game shooting 45% from the field and 38% from three. It was a poor performance overall from that end of the pitch.

It was a tough night for the Hawks on defense, at least until the fourth quarter. Sacramento shot 48% from the field and 33% from three in this game. De’Aaron Fox, who was probably the best player on the court, shot 11-16 from the field and finished with 31 points. DeMar DeRozan had 27 points and eight rebounds. The Kings held a big rebounding advantage over the Hawks 51-40.

Overall, this was a game that Atlanta had a chance to steal late, but they struggled throughout, especially on defense. Being shorthanded against a good team didn’t help either and it resulted in a disappointing loss Friday night. The Hawks are back in action on Sunday against the New Orleans Pelicans.