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ATLANTA (AP) - Just when it seemed Dennis Schroder would enjoy a triumphant return to Atlanta, his successor as the Hawks' starting point guard had a winning answer. Trae Young had 24 points and 11 assists to win the showdown of current and past Atlanta point guards, leading the Hawks over the Oklahoma City Thunder 142-126 on Tuesday night. 'Tonight the shots just kept falling,' said Young, who had four 3-pointers. 'When you see the ball go in like we did tonight, I think it just keeps rolling.' Schroder scored 21 points, including 14 in the third quarter. He had the Thunder's final 11 points of the period, the last six on free throws, for a 100-97 lead. Young answered with 13 points in the final period as the Hawks enjoyed their second 45-point quarter of the game. The Hawks outscored Oklahoma City 45-30 in the second period and 45-26 in the closing period. The win was especially sweet for Young, the former star for his home-state Oklahoma Sooners. 'It feels good,' Young said. '... To get a win against one of the top teams in the league is pretty special for us.' The Thunder are third in the West but have lost three of four. The Hawks have won eight of their last 15 but still rank ahead of only three teams in the Eastern Conference. Paul George said the Thunder were 'a little flat.' 'These are the games that we have to be ready for, one of those games that we were supposed to roll and that didn't happen tonight,' George said. 'When you play a team like the Hawks, you have to match their energy and we didn't do that tonight.' Russell Westbrook led Oklahoma City with 31 points and 11 assists. George had 24 points and Jerami Grant added 21. That wasn't enough scoring to match the Hawks, who made 18 of 37 3-pointers. Atlanta set a season scoring high. Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan said his team didn't play winning defense. 'What did we score tonight, 126 points?' Donovan asked. 'That should be good enough for us to win.' John Collins made 12 of 14 shots from the field and led Atlanta with 26 points. Alex Len had 24 points and 11 rebounds. The Hawks were 18 of 37 on 3-pointers. Young opened the final period with a tying 3-pointer. He added a three-point play and another basket as the Hawks regained momentum. A jam by Omari Spellman pushed Atlanta's lead to 117-107, and another dunk by Spellman pushed the advantage to 121-109. A steal and reverse jam by DeAndre Bembry iced the win. TIP-INS Thunder: F Nerlens Noel (concussion protocol) 'is doing a little more each day,' Donovan said before the game. ... G Alex Abrines (personal reasons) missed his eighth straight game. Hawks: G Jeremy Lin (flu-like symptoms) was not with the team. F Taurean Prince was limited in his second game back while recovering from similar symptoms. ... G Kent Bazemore (right ankle sprain) and F Dewayne Dedmon (left ankle sprain) did not play. Dedmon may return Saturday against Boston. MORE BLUE TO COME The Hawks wore new powder blue uniforms with red trim and numbers for the first time. It won't be the last. 'I told our equipment guy, Zac (Walsh) that we have to play in those uniforms for the rest of the month,' said Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce. The uniforms were introduced as part of the Hawks' 50-year celebration in Atlanta. HOMECOMING Schroder was happy to be traded to a contender but said his time with the Hawks 'was special.' The Hawks had a 'welcome back' video tribute for Schroder during a first-quarter timeout. Schroder raised his arm to acknowledge the fans. 'I appreciated it a lot,' he said. UP NEXT Thunder: Host Lakers on Thursday. Hawks: Host Celtics on Saturday. ___ More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/tag/NBAbasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports -
ATHENS, Ga. — Tom Crean’s postgame press conferences typically go straight to the point, and Tuesday night’s was no different. What happened in the 69-49 loss to No. 12-ranked Kentucky? “They are really good, we missed a lot of open shots, they’ll get better, we’ll get better, but the bottom line is outside of basketball-wise, our maturity, mental toughness has got to pick up when things are not going well for us,’ Crean said. RELATED: Georgia can’t stop Kentucky despite sellout crowd and hot start “I know we don’t have a lot of guys that have been through a lot of battles where they were the guy expected to carry the team the team, but that’s not an excuse, now we have to step it up and keep going.” Georgia is 0-6 this season when tied or trailing at the half, and in embarrassing losses to Tennessee (96-50) and now the Wildcats, the Bulldogs’ didn’t show much fight on defense or in 50-50 scrambles. Crean, with the Bulldogs (9-7, 1-3) SEC next facing Florida at noon on Saturday, sounds like a man on the verge of making changes. “It would-be different if I was hammering guys and pulling guys out left and right because we’re missing shots, but I’m not doing that, but I’m going to have to start doing it if we’re not going to guard better on the defensive end,” Crean said. “And I’m going to have to make an adjustment at the start of the second half. “I don’t want to say we’re listless, but we’re not nearly where we need to be aggressiveness-wise. I’m going to deep dive into that to see if we need to make changes at the start of the second halves.” Kentucky used a 9-0 run to open the second half on Tuesday and blow open what had been a contested game through the first half, The Wildcats held a slim 35-31 lead at intermission despite UGA making only 2-of-13 shots in the first half. Georgia senior point guard William “Turtle” Jackson, who was 1-of-8 shooting and 0-for-5 from 3-point range, said the team would be ready to go back to work at practice on Thursday. He didn’t say anything about getting extra shots on his own on Wednesday, the team’s off-day. More time in the gym shooting is often what separates good teams from great teams, and the numbers suggest it’s something the Bulldogs clearly more of to be competitive in the SEC. Georgia was 326 of 351 in 3-point shooting last season and entered Tuesday night 238th of 351 teams. RELATED: Tom Crean has plan for Georgia basketball guard issues “Our four main guards were (2 of 19) from the three,” Crean said. “We let it affect our transition defense, a couple of turnovers that make no sense …. “ Georgia also committed more turnovers (14) than assists (12), giving UK a 14-6 edge on points off turnovers. “There were a couple of times we didn’t look at our target, and they shot the gap,” Crean said, explaining some otherwise puzzling give-aways. “We had a couple seniors do that, and it’s a joke when you get in your senior year at Georgia, you can’t make those passes.” Kentucky also outscored Georgia 40-22 in the paint, even after senior center Derek Ogbeide opened the game with three dunks in the opening five minutes. Ogbeide didn’t score after that, finishing with as many turnovers (3) as rebounds (3). What happened to Ogbeide, Crean was asked. “We tried to make some plays that weren’t there, he didn’t roll quite as hard a couple times as he could have, we got him the ball in the post and he was tentative with it,” Crean said. “They clamped down a bit, that was part of it,” he said. “But when we throw Derek the ball, he needs to score or get fouled, he doesn’t need to sit there and have like an hourglass, where time is wasting. I tell him that every day, we’re throwing you the ball for a reason, don’t stand there and wait, cut, I mean, rip it open, drive it, go score, or that’s when the length starts to take over or he rushes. “We work on those things, he’s got to get better, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think that he could.” Crean said he’s going to continue to emphasize the positives, and he said he has been happy with how hard his team practices and their focus coming into games. Georgia basketball coach Tom Crean The post WATCH Tom Crean: Georgia basketball ‘maturity, mental toughness has got to pick up’ appeared first on DawgNation. -
ATHENS — Not quite ready for primetime. That’s all you can say about Georgia Bulldogs at the moment. The players want it. The fans want it. Tom Crean wants it in the worst way. They just don’t have the horses to run with the likes of Kentucky just yet. Or Tennessee. Or Auburn. Or Arizona State. That’s not meant to be a negative take on Tuesday night’s game between the Bulldogs and No. 12 Kentucky. On the contrary. Despite the 69-49 loss, Georgia’s really not that far away from being ready for primetime. All they’re missing at the moment is a guard or two. A point guard in particular. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the point guard they needed was playing for the opponent Tuesday. Ashton Hagans was a longtime UGA commitment under former Georgia coach Mark Fox. He backed out of that decision after Mark Fox was fired at the end of last season and Crean was unable to convince Hagans he should come anyway. For the record, Kentucky John Calipari said before Tuesday’s game he didn’t “flip” Hagans. “The family contacted us,” Calipari insisted. Doesn’t matter. Hagans was fair game, a casualty of Georgia’s decision to part with Fox. The Georgia students knew this, and they booed Hagans heartily every time he touched the ball and chanted “traitor, traitor, traitor!” every time Hagans went to the foul line. The problem was they were booing and chanting a lot, because Hagans had the ball in hands a lot. And when he did, good things were usually happening with it. Hagans was clearly motivated and might have been forcing the issue a bit early as he started off 1-of-7 shooting. But he eventually settled down and really made the Bulldogs feel his present in the second half. He made a 3 and two fast-break layups in the first four minutes to push the Wildcats out to a sudden 13-point lead in what had been until then a tight game. And he kept it up from there. Hagans was also the catalyst of another 8-0 run, scoring on a fast-break dunk and feeding E.J. Montgomery for an alley-oop on another nifty drive. Hagans finished with a career-high 23 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals. Contrast that with the line of Georgia’s starting point guard. Turtle Jackson had 2 points on 1-of-8 shooting, 0-for-5 from 3 and 2 assists. Everybody in Stegeman Coliseum was thinking the same thing: “Man, how much different would the Bulldogs look with Hagans on their team.” That narrative hasn’t been limited to the Kentucky game. Georgia was a victim of the same level of backcourt deficiency in its loss to No. 11 Auburn this past Saturday. It was not lost on anybody that the Tigers’ two leading scorers from that game both were guards from Georgia, Jared Harper of Mableton’s Pebblebrook High (22 points, 7 assists) and Bryce Brown of Tucker High (15 points). Crean knows this. Georgia’s working on it. They Bulldogs reportedly are in on some of the top point guards in the nation. A master identifier and acquirer of talent at Marquette and Indiana, Crean knows what great guards look like and how to sign them. Trouble is, none of them are going to be in a Georgia uniform this season. They’re are a few in other uniforms, though, including the one in blue Tuesday. The post Georgia Bulldogs not ready for primetime until they fix guard issues appeared first on DawgNation.
