Toronto Raptors is definitely one of the most successful teams in the NBA League in recent seasons, when they resolutely broke up the garbage brothers Lowry and DeRozan, who had performed poorly in the playoffs for many years, traded leonard, the Spurs' young gang leader, and won the first championship trophy in team history as desired, in addition, the successful championship experience has also made great progress for the players on the team, and now the Raptors have shown good competitiveness under the leadership of the two cores, VanVleet and Siakam. After the core lineup of that year was dismantled, it still maintained the hope of reaching the playoffs this season! But after the end of the All-Star Game, the raptors' overall state of the raptors showed a cliff-like decline, the last game against the Hornets lost 32 points, and in this game they challenged the Hawks back-to-back, the latter urgently needed to have a bottoming out performance in the second half, so as to get a playoff spot, after the game began, the Raptors showed a fiery offensive state in the first quarter, but then was suppressed by the opponent, once allowing the Hawks to establish a huge lead of 32 points, and finally the whole game ended, The Raptors lost 100-127 and suffered two straight losses!
In the last game with the Hornets, the Raptors, in addition to the fourth show Barnes, can be said to be the team's downturn, but only rely on Barnes to cut the team's highest 28 points, simply unable to rewrite the outcome of the big loss, and in this game, Barnes only appeared on the scene to see 21.1 minutes to score 6 points, without this stable scoring point, which is also the reason why the Raptors did not bite the score in the anxious moment.
As the core of the team today, Siakam, who has high hopes, has not found any game status after the adjustment of the previous game, and this game against the Eagles with Capela in the game, he is still sleepwalking, playing 36.4 minutes, only 16 shots in 6 individual performances, only 14 points, 10 rebounds and 5 assists.
The Raptors, who suffered two consecutive routs, the only good news of this game is that VanVleet has regained some form, hitting the ball from outside the three-point line, cutting 24 points, 3 rebounds and 9 assists, and the second-year show Avachu, who came off the bench, also performed well and scored 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
The most fundamental reason why the Eagles were able to win this game was that they did not lose their opponents at all in terms of star dominance, and also showed a complete crushing advantage in team nature, although Gallinari, who was called the Italian cannon by fans, felt cold and only 1 of 9 shots, but core defender Trae Young became an inexplicable presence on the court, shooting 41 points, 4 rebounds and 11 assists on 17-of-24 shooting.
Under Trae Young's tandem organization, the Hawks have a total of five players scoring in double figures, among which Okonwu, who was selected by the Hawks with the sixth pick in the first round last year, played a good performance on the bench and hit 6 goals in 6 shots, contributing 17 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist and 3 blocks, proving that he still has a certain talent and potential.
After winning this game, the Hawks are still in the tenth place in the East, but the gap between them and the Hornets in front of them has narrowed to only 0.5 games, if they can maintain such a state and performance, I believe that the Hawks, as the biggest dark horse in the East last season, can still get a place in the playoffs after the end of the regular season!