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When the Houston Rockets decided to go all-in in their smallball experience last season, one of the big moves they made was to trade Clint Capela, who ended up with the Atlanta Hawks. But because of an injury and all that was stopped by the pandemic, Capela played very little basketball last year and only made his debut with the Hawks this season.
It didn’t take long for him to show why Atlanta was eager to bring him in as an inner presence. On Wednesday night, Capela put in a historic performance, scoring 27 points, a career-high 26 rebounds, five blocks in the Hawks’ 123-115 overtime win over the Detroit Pistons.
In doing so, Capela became the first player to score at least 25 points, 25 rebounds and five blocks since Shaquille O’Neal in 2004. The only other players to have accomplished this feat in the past 35 seasons are Dikembe Mutombo, Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon, which puts the big Swiss man in a pretty elite company.
And it wasn’t like Capela was just looking for stats in an explosion. In addition to entering the record books, it has made enormous progress in regulation. As the Hawks followed suit, Trae Young drove inside to try and get something moving, and Capela made a smart cut to find the open space. Young gave him the ball and he hammered it at home to tie the game and send things to OT, where the Hawks ultimately pulled out.
In truth, Capela’s other highlights aren’t all that exciting, as he was doing a lot of dirty work in the paint like scrapping for offensive rebounds, converting comebacks, etc. don’t make the headlines, but they do win games, as the Young Hawks found out against the Pistons.
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