Cavs’ top-ranked defense shredded by Hawks in 136-119 blowout loss

ATLANTA — This is the time of year when the NBA marathon turns into a furious sprint. The Cavs have stumbled and fallen flat on their face.

Playing the second of a back-to-back, Cleveland spent most of the night sleepwalking and got ripped apart by the energetic Atlanta Hawks, 136-119. It’s the Cavs’ third straight loss. They are 13-18 on the road.

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Atlanta, which entered Friday on a two-game losing skid and surprisingly fired coach Nate McMillan over the All-Star break, looked rejuvenated with interim Joe Prunty manning the sidelines.

Led by the dynamic backcourt tandem of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, the Hawks’ precise pick-and-roll attack repeatedly flummoxed Cleveland’s top-ranked defense. The Hawks poured in 81 points in the first half — the most given up by the Cavs in any half this season, topping the 75 from Boston on Oct. 28.

That offensive eruption allowed Atlanta to build at 24-point halftime lead. It just kept pouring it on — and drilling jumpers — from there.

Around the midway point of the third quarter, Young pushed the ball in transition, stopped at the top of the arc, looked around for a few seconds, saw that no defender had interest in closing out and then netted a triple, which forced a perturbed J.B. Bickerstaff to call timeout while Young did his patented celebration. The Cavs trailed by a game-high 32 points.

Even though Cleveland didn’t give in, using a 12-0 run in the first three-plus minutes of the fourth quarter to cut the Hawks’ lead to 13, Atlanta answered right back with a 7-0 surge that stymied the Cavs’ late-game comeback effort.

With 3:30 remaining, Bickerstaff pulled most of his regulars.

The unstoppable Young scored a game-high 34 points on 8 of 18 shooting, 4 of 7 from 3-point range and 14 of 15 from the free throw line to go with nine assists in 32 scintillating minutes.

Murray added 25 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

Four other Hawks reached double figures in scoring Friday night — Saddiq Bey (19), Onyeka Okongwu (13), Clint Capela (10) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (10).

In all, Atlanta shot 58.8% from the field and 53.6% from 3-point range.

The Cavs were led by Darius Garland, who scored a team-high 33 points. Backcourt mate Donovan Mitchell added 19 points but was just 6 of 17 from the field and 2 of 10 from beyond the arc.

Center Jarrett Allen finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. Evan Mobley had 13 points. The youngster reached 2,000 points for his career in the loss. Among players whose first 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds all came for Cleveland, only Brad Daugherty got there in 130 or fewer games. Daugherty took just 123 games to reach those marks.

The Cavs missed their first seven 3-point tries before finishing 13 of 35 from deep overall.

When the Cavs recently spoke about ramping up the intensity and preparing for a heightened level of competition, this isn’t what they had in mind.

Time to pick themselves back up and start pushing toward home with a little more urgency.

Up next

The Cavs will return home for a matchup against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday evening. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.

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