3 Takeaways From Hawks' 125-117 Overtime Loss to Bulls

The Atlanta Hawks were down 18 to the Chicago Bulls early in the second quarter Friday night at United Center. They got all the way back, forced overtime, and lost 125-117.

Atlanta is 7-6. Chicago won for the second time in 11 games.

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

With the game tied at 110 and 30 seconds left in regulation, Nickeil Alexander-Walker pulled up from 26 feet and missed. Josh Giddey got the rebound. Norman Powell missed a floater at the other end, and Atlanta's last possession of regulation ended when Aaron Wiggins lost the ball out of bounds with 2 seconds left.

Alexander-Walker finished 1-of-11 from 3-point range. The Hawks went 0-of-6 from deep in overtime, with two misses each from Alexander-Walker and CJ McCollum. Their last make from beyond the arc was Onyeka Okongwu's 3-pointer with 2:10 left in regulation, which cut Chicago's lead to 110-106.

Atlanta went 8-of-40 for the game. Chicago went 20-of-50, and Patrick Williams' 3-pointer off a Giddey pass with 3:43 left in regulation put the Bulls back in front 106-103.

The Hawks outscored Chicago 66-46 in the paint, 26-8 in transition, and 24-7 on second chances. They also took 107 shots to Chicago's 91.

Hawks coach Quin Snyder took questions at his postgame news conference.

"I think we didn't play with force at the beginning of the game, and that impacts our defense," Snyder said. "It's kind of the complementary basketball, with how your offense impacts your defense. And when we're not forceful defensively or active, and we're not running, I think. So we know the things we need to have in the front of our minds to focus on, and when we don't do that, we don't play well."

"By the same token, we started to find that, and I think 18 down, but again, it's when you're not shooting the ball well," Snyder continued. "You had a bad shooting night, which is going to happen. Those things become even more important. And then when your opponent is shooting the ball, it compounds itself."

Chicago turned the ball over 25 times, and Atlanta scored 34 points off those mistakes. Luguentz Dort had 4 of the Hawks' 13 steals in 19 minutes, and Alexander-Walker had 3.

Dort's fourth steal came with 42 seconds left in the third quarter, when he took the ball from Giddey and ran in for a layup that tied the game at 83. In the fourth, Jalen Johnson stole a Giddey pass with 1:44 left, made two free throws on the next trip, and tied it at 110 with a running dunk off a Dyson Daniels feed.

Atlanta was the sloppier team early. Kingston Flemings threw the game's first turnover 22 seconds in, and Alexander-Walker came out of a Hawks timeout with bad passes on consecutive trips. Powell made a pull-up 3-pointer between those two turnovers, and Chicago led 17-9 with 6:46 left in the first quarter.

The Bulls led 33-24 after one. Atlanta had six first-quarter turnovers and 17 for the game, and Chicago scored 20 points off them. Flemings left the game with back tightness after 17 minutes and did not return.

Powell had 24 points when regulation ended, and he missed two floaters in the final 36 seconds with the game tied. He finished with 33.

In overtime, he drew a foul on Alexander-Walker and converted a three-point play off a driving floater for a 113-112 lead with 3:46 left. He hit a 19-foot step-back at 2:35 and finished a driving finger roll through another Alexander-Walker foul at 1:29 for a 120-115 lead.

Powell went 12-of-19 from the field and 5-of-6 at the line. Hawks Roundtable has argued for Atlanta to target Powell along with Jalen Smith, who had 15 points and 12 rebounds Friday.

Atlanta scored 7 points in the extra period. After Okongwu's opening layup, the Hawks got one Johnson free throw, an Alexander-Walker floater with 1:43 left, and a McCollum floater with 43 seconds left. Matas Buzelis answered McCollum with a 3-pointer at the 24-second mark.

Snyder was asked whether the effort to come back had cost the Hawks down the stretch.

"Powell hit some tough shots in the overtime, which I thought we defended pretty well," Snyder explained. "We made a couple of adjustments that our guys executed that I thought were really good. And I think as much as anything, you put yourself in a position where you got to make a lot of plays, and we made enough to get where we were."

"But there's kind of that — that game goes back and forth, and it went back one too many times," Snyder continued.

Johnson's 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists gave him his first triple-double this season. McCollum scored 20 off the bench.

Atlanta visits Milwaukee on Sunday, with tip-off at 8 p.m. ET.