Final Score: Spurs soar over Hawks, 136-121

The San Antonio Spurs faced their second game of the Rodeo Road Trip against the Atlanta Hawks one day after the trade deadline, where the Spurs made a big splash yesterday by making way more trade deadline moves than at any other time this century. Derrick White, Juancho Hernangomez, Drew Eubanks, and Thad Young are no longer on the team. The new players- Gorman Dragic, Tomas Santoransky, Josh Richardson, Romeo Langford are out either due to injury, because they are not with the team yet, or because they’re about to be waived. Coming into the game, the Atlanta Hawks were favored over the Spurs -7.5, so of course the struggling and shorthanded underdogs took it to the home team.

Observations

Devin Vassell has shot really well from the mid-range throughout the season.
Spurs outscored the Hawks 43-29 early in a perhaps their best start to a game all season.
Zach Collins has been setting terrific screens and scores a nice three in the second quarter. It’s refreshing to see him play again.
In the cusp of this game, Derrick White had his Boston Celtics debut and received a standing ovation. Is it still early enough to be sad that he is gone?
Trae Young stripped the ball from Josh Primo, which resulted in a big time dunk from De’Andre hunter. In the very next possession, he responded with a 3-pointer. In my eyes, that was a wash.
Jakob Poeltl made his first three-pointer of the season from half-court. That was incredible.
In the second quarter, the Spurs have already made 12 three-pointer. The Spurs average 11 threes per game. Spurs are shooting really, really good from the 3-point line today.
Atlanta outscored the Spurs 31-30 in the 4th quarter, but the Spurs are still ahead 103-87.
Devin Vassell has 18 points at the beginning of the 4th quarter, he’s a stud on both sides of the ball. I expect him to be a starter for the most part throughout the rest of the season now that Derrick White is out.
Tre Jones has been great coming off the bench tonight. He’s been playing aggressively, and able to penetrate the paint and finish shots. So far, he’s scored 8 points will only playing 11 minutes.
It’s always a good game when all Spurs starters are scoring in the double-digits for the evening. All starters have been effective tonight, played great off the pick and roll, and were great with passing and ball movement as well.
Keldon Johnson has been playing really well tonight. After scoring a season-high 28 points against the Cavaliers, KJ is also having another great night shooting.
The Spurs were outscored in the second half, but still managed to pull off the victory. That huge impact in the first quarter along with 56% 3-pt shooting were the keys to the Spurs victory tonight.
Side note: With this win, Gregg Popovich is only 5 wins away from becoming the all-time coach leader in regular season wins.