National Basketball Association

Spurs vs Hawks: Recap And Highlights

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Hawks fell to the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night, losing 102-90

Preseason is a critical time for any professional sports team. Some coaching staffs evaluates their starters while some use preseason to evaluate the potential rotating players. Which would help explain why the Atlanta Hawks came up empty against the San Antonio Spurs last night. The Hawks, who would lose by a score of 102-90, rested their starting players. Paul Millsap, is still rehabbing his knee injury. In the mean time, the younger players such as Malcolm Delaney, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Taurean Prince got the starting nod.

Delaney and Prince led the Hawks in scoring with 13 points equally. Kris Humphries, added double digit scoring with 11 points. Ed Tavares led the team with seven rebounds and Will Bynum had seven assists while coming from the bench. Hardaway Jr., though, struggled from the field. He finished the night 1 of 13 from the field.

On another note, Gregg Popovich took more of an evaluating role, watching the game from Spurs owner R.C. Bufords box. A game in which Pop elects not to coach? Not surprising, especially someone with a basketball acumen as him.

Via Kens5 news

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was not on the bench for the game, instead watching the action with assistant coach Ettore Messina and general manager R.C. Buford from Buford’s box.

“Well, you don’t coach, you can evaluate,” Popovich said, when asked about the difference in watching the game from the stands and not the bench. “That’s the reason why Ettore and I were up there.

“We were looking at different players. We have to make decisions on gulys. We are not thinking about O’s and X’s too much. Just trying to evaluate people.”

To conclude, although the starters weren’t present, the Hawks bench showed promise. Delaney and Prince exemplified briefly why the Hawks drafted them. Although it’s only preseason, a better game from Hardaway Jr. would definitely help down the line.

To watch the highlights of the game, watch below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYY-gAyLeR8