Box Score Breakdown | Grizzles @ Hawks

By Kyle Soppe

So much for protecting home court, as the Atlanta Hawks were run out of their own building by the Memphis Grizzles 96-77. How does that happen you ask?

Reserve Ivan Johnson was the leading scorer for the Hawks with 11 points. Ignoring the fact that Johnson is viewed as more of an enforcer as anything else, his team leading 11 points is pitiful. This is the lowest point total by a teams leading scorer in the NBA this season (and yes, that includes when the Magic only produced 56 points).

Johnson’s 11 points would have tied him for fifth most points on the Grizzles roster.

With their leading scorer coming off their bench, the Hawks saw their starters get outscored by 22 by Memphis’ starting five. The odd part here, is that that includes Marreese Speights of Memphis, who only contributed two points. Therefore, the Hawks starting five was outscored by the four Grizzle staters by 20 points.

Atlanta did shoot the long ball better than Memphis, as they made more and shot a better percentage. Their lack of aggressiveness was reflected in their free throw attempts. The athletic Hawks who struggle from the perimeter at times attempted six more shots from distance than they did from the charity stripe.

Speaking of freebies, the Grizzles got there more often, but couldn’t convert. They made 63% of the free throws, the lowest percentage for a winning team (that doesn’t include Dwight Howard) this season.

Atlanta registered only 31 points in the first and third quarter combined. Memphis scored 32 points in the second quarter alone. Taking it a step further, in the Golden State/Utah and LAC/Denver there were six quarters in which a team scored at least 31 points.

The Grizzles had 0 players tally double digits and shoot less than 50%, while the Hawks had two. Take into account that the Grizzles had five players score 10+ while the Hawks only had three, and that explains the lopsided nature of this game.

Home teams get the benefit of the doubt on foul calls, right? Not really. Memphis had only 10 fouls in 48 minutes, by far the lowest number in the NBA last night.

The lone all star in this game (Marc Gasol) made his presence known, as the Grizz were +40 for the 35 minutes he was on the court. Conversely, the Hawks outscored Memphis by 11 for the 13 minutes Gasol was on the bench.

Tonight’s game per request is the 76ers against the Heat. Feel free to suggest games/teams that you want to see a breakdown of and I’d be happy to do so.