Jeff Teague spent his first NBA seasons with the Atlanta Hawks and, as a result, it is always noteworthy when he returns to Philips Arena. Granted, Teague has not been on the Hawks roster for nearly two full years but he was the point guard on the best team in franchise history, which brings a bit of extra attention anytime the former All-Star returns to his old stomping grounds.
On Monday evening, though, Teague endured an evening that he will want to forget with haste. The 29-year-old finished a dismal 1-for-12 from the floor and, to make things uglier, Teague came up short in a few high-profile instances.
Former teammate Kent Bazemore provided Hawks fans with two highlights at Teague’s expense, including a chase-down block in the final minutes that energized the home crowd.
The chase-down block.
A thing of beauty. pic.twitter.com/BFTWrYTyex
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) January 30, 2018
After the game, Bazemore even let Teague know what he did wrong.
Bazemore said that he said something to Teague after the 1st-half chasedown block: "I told him, 'You've got to dunk that. I mean, you know that.'"
— Kevin Chouinard (@KLChouinard) January 30, 2018
Then, things got even weirder for Teague, who committed a ghastly turnover with less than 40 seconds remaining and followed that up with, well, another ghastly turnover. In fact, the second one came in the form of the rarely seen five-second violation in crunch time.
How To Lose A Basketball Game
A Story by Jeff Teague: pic.twitter.com/Ft6V6AOkiP
— cainelovescali (@cainelovescali) January 30, 2018
Because anything can happen on an NBA floor, especially in January, it isn’t that crazy that the Hawks (six-point underdogs in this spot) would upset the Wolves. What is wild, though, is the way Teague played to help place Minnesota in this position and the synergy of laying this kind of egg in his former home building adds to the bizarre circumstance of this performance.
