Last night’s game between the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans wasn’t a must-see for most NBA fans, but it was the first time Dejounte Murray faced his former team in Atlanta since his move over the summer. This was the main storyline of the night and after the game, Trae Young expressed his honest thoughts about facing Murray for the first time since the summer trade:

“Yeah, I mean, Dejounte, I’d say he’s a really good friend. So it was different playing against him tonight. Obviously we’ve played together for the last two years. He’s recovering from an injury and he’s obviously done that. “We knew he wasn’t going to have a really good game tonight so we tried to make it as difficult for him as possible and of course we gave him a good time made that he plays well every night Apart from the nights he plays us it doesn’t affect us that much so we still communicated every now and then I know he was hurt.

Murray was the star of the Pelicans offense tonight, but he had a tough night shooting the ball, going 2-for-15 from the floor and 1-for-7 from three. Aside from CJ McCollum (29 points) and rookie Yves Missi (21 points and 10 rebounds), New Orleans couldn’t find a consistent offense.

It says a lot about this team that Trae Young can go 5-16 from the floor and the team still wins and shoots over 50% from the floor. Young finished the game with 12 points, 15 assists and eight rebounds and was a team-high +20 on the court. Young has been more of a facilitator this year and this game was a great example.

This four-game winning streak wouldn’t be possible without the performance of De’Andre Hunter, and he continued it tonight. Hunter came off the bench to score 22 points and shoot 4-7 from three. Atlanta is undefeated this year when scoring 20 points. The Hawks bench has been great during this winning streak and Hunter is the main reason why. Atlanta’s bench outscored New Orleans’ bench 52-29.

The Hawks got one of the best games of the year from Clint Capela, especially on the glass. Capela grabbed 17 rebounds, five of which were on offense. He was also strong defensively.

Jalen Johnson continues to make the case to be an All-Star. He had 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists on 9-14 shooting.

Dyson Daniels had one of his most complete games of the year. In his return to Atlanta, he was a major defensive threat for Dejounte Murray, scoring 19 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the floor.

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Atlanta used a strong second half to defeat New Orleans 124-112 and win their fourth straight game