
The Portland Trail Blazers are going back to the drawing board after losing 135-101 against the Atlanta Hawks inside State Farm Arena.
It was one of the worst losses for the Blazers this season, and a lot of numbers signify how poorly they played. Here's a look at five stats that stand out from the box score.
The Blazers did not do a very good job taking care of the basketball, giving the ball up 17 times, which led to 30 Hawks points.
It's hard to win basketball games when you lose the turnover battle, and that's exactly what happened for the Blazers. They couldn't get into a rhythm on offense, and it ended up being disastrous for the team.
The lone positive stat from the box score may have been Jrue Holiday scoring 23 points on 9 of 16 shooting. He made a team-high three shots from beyond the arc and was really the only Blazers player that had something going for him in the first quarter.
Nights like these are part of why the Blazers traded for Holiday to begin with, and they are fortunate to have a steady veteran presence that can give the team something moving forward.
The Blazers got absolutely blitzed in the first quarter as the Hawks scored 44 points in the first 12 minutes. They won on a 26-11 run in the final six minutes of the quarter and built a lead as large as 24 points. The Blazers were beaten at that point in the game, and they didn't have anything that could jolt them back into the contest.
Another reason why the Blazers had no chance to win the game was the rebounding battle. The Hawks out-rebounded the Blazers 54-38. While Donovan Clingan had 15 of those rebounds, the rest of the team struggled on the glass. Nobody had more than five rebounds other than Clingan.
Meanwhile, the Hawks had Onyeka Okongwu, Jalen Johnson, Jonathan Kuminga, Dyson Daniels, Zaccharie Risacher and Jock Landale beat that mark.
The Hawks were feasting in the paint, scoring left and right against the Blazers. They had 66 of their 135 points in the paint, which established dominance over the Blazers. Portland managed to post just 42 points of their own in the paint.
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