Hawks Fall to Lakers 124-114, Ending Four-Game Winning Streak

Matisse Thybulle hit a 3-pointer with 52.9 seconds left Monday night to put the Los Angeles Lakers up 124-114. Neither team scored again.

The Atlanta Hawks turned it over 20 times at State Farm Arena. Los Angeles got 29 points out of those.

Monday's loss snapped a four-game winning streak for Atlanta, which had come back from 17 down to beat Brooklyn on Saturday. The Hawks fell to 7-5. Los Angeles is 10-2, with six straight wins.

Luka Dončić needed 22 shots for his 32 points. He made 11 of them, went 3-of-11 from deep, and was perfect on 7 free throws, and over 39:23 he also had 8 rebounds, 10 assists, 5 steals, and 6 turnovers.

Atlanta was up 19-11 with 5:47 left in the first quarter. Over the rest of the period, the Lakers outscored the Hawks 20-3 and went to the second quarter ahead 31-22.

Dončić's first free throw with 2:00 left in the quarter gave Los Angeles a 23-22 lead. Atlanta did not lead again.

Dončić took the ball from Aaron Wiggins, Luguentz Dort, and CJ McCollum in the final 1:44. The first steal became a Cameron Carr dunk. The third set up a Sandro Mamukelashvili 3-pointer with 29.7 seconds left, and Mamukelashvili would finish with 23 off the bench, 5-of-8 from 3.

Collin Sexton lobbed three alley-oops to Walker Kessler within 1:42 early in the second quarter. Kessler scored 13 in the period on 5-of-7 shooting and ended the night with 21 points and 10 rebounds.

Sexton hit a 3-pointer at 6:44 for a 51-32 lead and another 48 seconds later for 54-34, the first 20-point margin of the night. He had 18 points and 6 assists in 26:32. Atlanta went to the locker room down 68-57.

Ziaire Williams opened the second half with a steal and a dunk, then dunked again 18 seconds later, and the Lakers were up 72-57.

Over the next 3:25, the Hawks scored 9 straight points. Onyeka Okongwu, who finished with 16 points and 9 rebounds, started it with a driving finger roll. Dyson Daniels stole the ball from Kessler twice, hit a 3-pointer, and tipped in a missed layup by Jalen Johnson to make it 72-66.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker made two 3-pointers 28 seconds apart later in the quarter. He scored 20, making 6 of his 19 shots and 4 of his 14 from deep.

The Hawks won the third quarter 33-27 and went to the fourth down 95-90. Wiggins' 3-pointer with 8:55 left cut it to 100-98. He scored 9 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter, and Johnson also finished with 15.

Sexton was called for a technical foul with 6:47 to play. Wiggins made the free throw to make it 108-104, and Daniels' floater with 3:30 left made it 115-111.

After that floater, Dončić scored on a driving finger roll, Williams stole a pass from Johnson and dunked, and Jake LaRavia finished a cutting dunk off a Dončić pass for a 121-111 lead. Atlanta went scoreless until McCollum hit a 3-pointer with 1:12 left. That gave him 13 points after halftime and a team-high 21, on 8-of-15 shooting.

Sixteen of Atlanta's 20 turnovers were Lakers steals, 5 of them by Dončić and 3 by Thybulle. Johnson and Kingston Flemings each committed 4. The Hawks forced 16 Lakers turnovers and scored 14 points off them.

Hawks coach Quin Snyder said Atlanta could not defend well enough in the half court to make up for the numbers situations its turnovers created.

"Most of it was we were careless or not precise," Snyder said. "Lack of precision, whether it be our spacing or not ball faking and trying to make interior passes there. Talked about that."

"They're really good at turning you over, and they convert things that I think we understand," Snyder continued. "We just didn't execute in those ways. That's tough to defend against [live-ball] turnovers."

Atlanta still had more fast-break points, 20 to 17. Los Angeles won the paint 52-42 and shot 52.9% from the field.

Daniels finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, and 4 steals on 4-of-4 shooting. He thought Atlanta did a pretty good job on Dončić, and the big shots by other Lakers did more of the damage.

"I think we started playing slow, and then they're very good at loading up on people and loading up on drives and being in the passing lanes and stuff," Daniels said. "... We need to get stops to get out and run."

"But I think we just slowed down our pace in that last couple of minutes when the game was on the line and gave up too much easy stuff on the other end," Daniels added.

Snyder said the Hawks defended well early and that the possessions where they never got a chance to defend were what hurt them most.

"I think some of those possessions late were similar to the ones we had early, where there's opportunities to attack," Snyder explained. "For us, it's really consistent with the whole game. Whether it be us having [poor] spacing and trying to attack into a crowd, it's hard to do when they're all shifted, and then they do their heavy, heavy shifting."

"So opportunities to cut, all those things, but we have to be more connected collectively late in the game as well," Snyder noted.

Jock Landale played 14:11 in his return from a left hip strain and had 5 points and 5 rebounds. He had missed four straight games.

Austin Reaves did not play for Los Angeles because of an illness, and Quentin Grimes sat out with a right finger sprain.

The Hawks have three days off before visiting the Chicago Bulls on Friday at 8 p.m. ET. Chicago is 1-8.