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Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and the Los Angeles Lakers travel to Atlanta to face the Hawks at 8:00 ET Saturday on NBA TV.<\/p>\n
The Atlanta Hawks (4-5, 9th in Eastern Conference) host the Los Angeles Lakers (7-2, 2nd in Western Conference) Saturday at State Farm Arena. <\/p>\n
The Hawks are playing their second game in as many nights after losing to Toronto in Friday\u2019s Emirates NBA Cup East Group A action. The Lakers, meanwhile, will be well-rested, having last played Wednesday in a win over the San Antonio Spurs. <\/p>\n
Here are three key storylines to know heading into Saturday\u2019s inter-conference matchup.<\/p>\n
Road Warriors: The Lakers embark on a five-game road swing Saturday. Being away from Crypto.com Arena has not fazed the Lakers this season, though. Los Angeles is the only team with a spotless road record thus far (4-0). They\u2019ll be put to the test over the next week (ATL, CHA, OKC, NOP, MIL). The Lakers have been remarkably efficient in those road games, showing that the 4-0 record is no fluke. Their 119.6 ORTG in away games ranks second behind only the Rockets, and they lead the league in True Shooting Percentage (64.3%) in those games as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Slowing Down Don\u010di\u0107: Los Angeles\u2019 Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a>, an early-season Kia MVP Ladder candidate<\/a>, has been on an absolute tear to begin this season. Through five games, Don\u010di\u0107 has averaged 40.0 points on 50% shooting while pulling down 11.0 rebounds and dishing out 9.2 assists per game. His high level of play has been particularly important while the Lakers deal with a rash of injuries. LeBron James<\/a> (back) has yet to play this season, and breakout star Austin Reaves<\/a> (groin) will miss a third straight game. The Hawks will likely throw a number of looks at Don\u010di\u0107 to try to slow him down, opening the possibility of reigning Kia Most Improved Player of the Year Dyson Daniels<\/a> drawing the assignment on some possessions. Daniels is one of the best defenders in the league with a 3.1% steal percentage that rates in the 97th percentile this season. His ability to prevent Don\u010di\u0107 from getting into the lane and getting easy buckets will be key.\u00a0<\/p>\n Hawks must dig deep: Atlanta has a rest disadvantage in this spot coming off of Friday\u2019s defeat against Toronto, while Los Angeles enters Saturday on two full days of rest. The Hawks fell 109-97 to the Raptors, shooting just 34.4 percent from the floor and mustering 44 second-half points. The offense has shown flashes of brilliance since All-Star guard Trae Young<\/a> was injured against the Brooklyn Nets, putting up 128 points on the Indiana Pacers<\/a> and 127 against the Orlando Magic<\/a>. But the team must find a way to string those types of offensive performances together, especially against a team of Los Angeles\u2019 caliber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and the Los Angeles Lakers travel to Atlanta to face the Hawks at 8:00 ET Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,29413,47,50,49,29414],"class_list":["post-44390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lakers-at-hawks","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nba-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}