De’Andre Hunter’s three-point dagger with 9.2 seconds remaining sunk the Eastern Conference’s best team by record in a shellshocked Boston, who led by as many as 30 points during a tale of two halves as Atlanta rallied together after half-time without a cluster of their injured key players to log a morale-boosting comeback win at home, weeks before their postseason fate is settled.
Murray leads with defence in big comeback win
DE’ANDRE Hunter was honest and unassuming as ever during his postgame interview on court. “It was just muscle memory after CC [Clint Capela] made a big rebound. The biggest thing we said going into half-time was, we gotta fight… the referees and Celtics aren’t gonna give us nothing, so we did it.”
That they did, and how.
Atlanta fans wouldn’t have been expecting much from their team besides a competitive clash against the league-leading Celtics (57-15) especially given how tightly they’ve been holding onto the final play-in spot for a while – their record stood at a whopping eight games below .500 before Monday night.
Now they sit five-and-a-half games in-front of the meddling Brooklyn Nets – sorry Mikal Bridges and co – while Hunter was right to point out one player for praise on a night where they all collectively deserved it, given their unlikely comeback.
“He leads us every night, is a hell of a player and it all starts with his defence.”
- Hunter on Dejounte Murray, stepping up in Trae’s absence
Plenty has been said in a negative light about the one-time All-Star guard, given his perceived inability to co-exist alongside Trae Young in the Atlanta backcourt. Yet this year he’s averaging new career-highs in points (22.3), eFG% (53.1) and enjoying his best year shooting the ball from deep since the 2019-20 season in San Antonio.
Whenever he’s not posting efficient statlines, he’s unafraid to guard the opposition’s best player and was frequently holding his own in one-on-one defensive scenarios against both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown here. That will never change.
Murray was quick to respond to the very real suggestion Atlanta are undermanned and undersized, given their franchise star and others were reduced to cheerleading roles on the sidelines through their respective injuries.
He replied to that notion, saying: “It’s the NBA, I don’t agree with that because anyone can be beat on any given night. We came out and competed, everyone was aggressive after half-time, obviously we tried to take away their threes or force them into contested shots and we got great looks ourselves.”
Trae Young (finger) – progressing, but still unavailable
Onyeka Okongwu (toe) – questionable for Trail Blazers game
Jalen Johnson (ankle) – will be re-evaluated on Thursday
Saddiq Bey (torn ACL) – out for season
Now the challenge remains maintaining that second-half intensity over the course of a full 48-minute game. Armed with 11 regular season games to go, head coach Quin Snyder has his hands full trying to replicate that success at a time where playoff permutations out East feel more open than they should be in late March.
Picture source: Getty Images, quotes via NBATV broadcast
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