Hawks’ Clint Capela matches Shaquille O’Neal with historically dominant interior performance
When the Houston Rockets determined to go all-in on their small-ball experiment final year, 1 of the huge moves they made was buying and selling away Clint Capela, who ended up with the Atlanta Hawks. But due to the fact of an injuries and anything remaining shut down by the pandemic, Capela performed very small basketball final 12 months, and failed to make his debut with the Hawks right until this year.
It failed to get him prolonged to show why Atlanta was keen to deliver him in as an inside existence. On Wednesday night, Capela turned in a historic general performance, putting up 27 points, a profession-superior 26 rebounds and five blocks in the Hawks’ 123-a hundred and fifteen time beyond regulation acquire about the Detroit Pistons.
In undertaking so, Capela grew to become the to start with player to put up at least 25 points, 25 rebounds and five blocks given that Shaquille O’Neal in 2004. The only other gamers to execute that feat in the previous 35 seasons are Dikembe Mutombo, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, which places the Swiss huge person in some rather elite firm.
And it was not like Capela was just chasing stats in a blowout. Alongside with getting into the history guides, he came up substantial down the stretch in regulation. With the Hawks trailing by two, Trae Younger drove within to try to make some thing take place, and Capela made a wise cut to uncover the open room. Younger gave him the ball and he hammered it home to tie the recreation and ship matters to OT, wherever the Hawks ultimately pulled away.
In real truth, the rest of Capela’s highlights usually are not all that fascinating, as he was undertaking a good deal of filthy do the job in the paint like scrapping for offensive rebounds, changing putbacks, and so on. Help save for uncommon nights like this, individuals style of plays commonly really don’t make headlines, but they do acquire game titles, as the younger Hawks uncovered out from the Pistons.
