Onyeka Okongwu scored 27 points and pulled down 12 rebounds as his Atlanta Hawks beat the hapless Utah Jazz 147-134 at State Farm Arena Sunday evening. Trae Young chipped in with 23 points and 15 assists.
Also, Caris LeVert scored 21, Dyson Daniels 19 and Vit Krejci 17 points, while making five-out-of-five shots from downtown. Atlanta never trailed during tonight’s game.
“Every team needs to make shots, but we need to get good shots,” explained Hawks head coach Quin Snyder. “And getting up and down the floor allows that to happen more consistently. In order to do that, we have to defend and rebound.”
Keyonte George led the Jazz with a career-high 35 points. Collin Sexton added 27 points and Isaiah Collier scored 17 with 12 assists.
Utah was without the following players: Elijah Harkless, Cody Williams, Taylor Hendricks, Lauri Markkanen, John Collins, and Jordan Clarkson. With this loss, Utah’s losing streak is now nine games. They have lost eight straight games three different times this season.
Hawks are not thinking about the postseason
Meanwhile, the Hawks have four games remaining in the season (three on the road). Currently, the Hawks one game behind the Orlando Magic for the seventh spot. If the Hawks are able to surpass the Magic in the standings, they will at least host one game in the Play-In Tournament. Conversely, Trae Young is not focused on it. He wants to get into the proper playoffs.
“We keep bringing up the postseason, but we’re not even there yet,” Young said. “We got to figure out how to get ourselves in good position when we get into the play-in to get a win and move on to the postseason. So that’s all I want to see. Taking one game at a time in these however many left we have in the season, and put ourselves in good spots.”
The Hawks play Orlando twice in the last four games of the season. Both teams split the previous two matchups. Atlanta travels to Orlando on Tuesday night. The next and final regular season home game will be against the Magic on Sunday, April 13th at 1:00 PM Eastern Time.