Quin Snyder Says Hawks 'Didn't Feel Like a Team' in Preseason Loss to Grizzlies

The Memphis Grizzlies scored 49 points in the second quarter Monday night at State Farm Arena and beat the Atlanta Hawks 132-123 in the preseason opener for both teams.

Atlanta led 35-32 after one quarter. Memphis made eight of its 11 3-point attempts in the second, outscored the Hawks 49-26, and went to halftime ahead 81-61. The lead reached 23 points.

Hawks coach Quin Snyder did not want to give his team a pass on either end of the floor.

"When we give up 49 points in a quarter, we really have to know who we are," Snyder said. "That's really what it comes down to: collectively defending and running, moving the ball, and scoring collectively as well. That doesn't mean guys don't make plays. We know who our playmakers are, but on both ends, we didn't feel like a team to them. That's how it felt to me.

"And we know we have been and we will be," Snyder continued. "That's also important to know. But it's delicate. If your focus isn't on the right things, you're capable of having a tough time. And we saw that."

Memphis scored 21 points off 17 Atlanta turnovers. The Grizzlies shot 51.8% from the field and 41.9% from 3-point range, made 18 3-pointers, and finished with 32 assists. Eight of them scored in double figures, led by GG Jackson II with 14 points.

The Hawks went 14-of-43 from deep.

Snyder said Memphis was getting into transition and coming straight at the Hawks off Atlanta possessions that were difficult to defend.

"Some of what we saw, I think we've learned it before," Snyder explained. "We just have to have the right focus. And the possessions, when we're collectively focused on passing the ball and playing together, I think we see the results of that. While we don't always score, we usually get good looks, and when we don't do that, it becomes really hard to play defense.

"The inverse is also true: if we're not locked in mentally on the defensive end, we can't get stops," Snyder added. "It becomes harder for us to score. They did a good job of picking us up, but we had opportunities to [be] better."

Atlanta started Kingston Flemings, Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Jalen Johnson, and Onyeka Okongwu. CJ McCollum, Luguentz Dort, and Mouhamed Gueye did not play. Alexander-Walker scored 10 of his 14 points in the first quarter.

The starters played one stint in the first half. None of them returned after halftime.

Atlanta won the third quarter 37-29 and the fourth 25-22. Corey Kispert scored 10 of his game-high 19 points in the third on 4-of-4 shooting, and two-way guard RayJ Dennis finished plus-12. Jalen Wilson, also on a two-way contract, was plus-8.

Snyder said the players who opened the second half had been learning from what they saw in the first.

"There's part of me that wanted the guys that didn't play to give them an opportunity to go out and play again," Snyder said. "We made a decision that [we] were going to play the game a certain way, and I didn't want to deviate from that in this instance. So I thought the way the guys came out in the second half, we saw more of what we wanted to see, and the scoreboard showed that.

"Those guys were kind of learning from what they saw in the first half," Snyder detailed. "Sometimes when you watch something, even if you're not out there, you can see it and respond to it, and they did a good job of doing that."

Flemings drew the start with McCollum out. Atlanta drafted the 19-year-old guard eighth overall out of Houston on June 23, after a freshman season in which he averaged 16.1 points and 5.2 assists in 37 games. His 594 points set a Houston record for a first-year player, and he was a consensus All-American.

Defense was the area Flemings singled out during his first NBA training camp last week in Nashville, Tennessee.

Snyder wants the Hawks to be honest and transparent with themselves about what generates success and what does not.

"He competed," Snyder said. "Saw some really good things. He spaced, knocked down a shot, picked up, played defense. He found some people, passing the ball when he got an advantage.

"And then there's other things that, as a 19-year-old rookie, you expect to see room for growth," Snyder noted. "I think really that's a huge thing for our team, just having a growth mindset. When you have that, you take a game like tonight and you can extract from it things that can help you grow."

Last week, Snyder said the four days of practice at Vanderbilt University helped build chemistry on a roster that traded for Dort and Aaron Wiggins, both from Oklahoma City, over the summer. Wiggins played 10 minutes Monday.

The Hawks play at the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday at Frost Bank Center, with tip-off set for 8 p.m. ET. Flemings played high school basketball at Brennan High School in San Antonio.

Atlanta has two more preseason games after that, at Indiana on Saturday and at home against Oklahoma City on Oct. 12, before closing its exhibition schedule Oct. 16 at Dallas. The regular season opens Oct. 21 at Orlando at 7 p.m. ET.