The Hawks had to scramble in the wake of Dyson Daniels being ruled out of this contest due to a right ankle sprain. In his place in the starting lineup stepped in newcomer CJ McCollum to slot next to Nickeil
Alexander-Walker, Vit Krejci, Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu.
McCollum didn’t waste any time getting on the board:
Atlanta struggled with getting downhill — and scoring in general — in the first quarter. Every time the Hawks got a paint touch, there were seemingly three sets of arms ready to poke at the ball.
The Hawks hung in there while Jaylen Brown got to his spots for 18 points in 12 minutes. Despite that, the damage was limited to just a seven-point margin after one quarter, 30-23.
With Brown on the bench, things didn’t get much better, however. A 10-0 run pushed the lead to 51-34, and the game was already teetering towards blowout territory with eight minutes remaining in the first half.
Spoiler: the game never left blowout territory. The second quarter alone was a 52-28 shellacking where the Celtics shot 19-for-25 (76%) from two and 11-for-15 (73%) from three.
Mercifully, the game came to an end, 132-106.
This was a tragically bad performance — one so bad that it has to call into question the job security of everyone involved. They came into the season with real hopes, and those hopes have been completely dashed and more.
There are no good words to put about the complete lack of effort from everyone involved. Being outclassed this bad by the Celtics on their home floor will leave a bad stain for a long time.
The next game is on MLK Day against the Milwaukee Bucks.
