Atlanta Hawks Making a Power Play in the East and Other Wednesday NBA Takeaways

You could argue that the Atlanta Hawks' 127-98 thrashing of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday was nothing more than a ledger-balancer or maybe just a study in the motivational power of vengeance.

In some ways, that's true. The Hawks trounced the Cavs by 29 points, but all the result did was level the season series between the two clubs. Remember, Cleveland smashed Atlanta by 33 on Nov. 15.

Anyone who really believes this was just a get-back game for the Hawks—an outlier aided by a particularly sleepy Cavs club—is as lost as LeBron James and Co. were on defense.The Hawks machine-gunned the Cavaliers on Wednesday, peppering them with an incessant barrage of open shots created by their trademark ball movement. Atlanta shot 16-of-28 from long distance, a scorching 57.1 percent. And its nine triples in the second quarter set a franchise mark, per Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

It was an offensive clinic, complete with 36 assists on 49 made buckets. The Hawks were surgical in their execution, committing just nine turnovers. Perhaps the best indicator of the Hawks' offensive onslaught: We've parsed out a half-dozen eye-opening stats before even getting to the fact that they shot 64.5 percent overall.

Cavs head coach David Blatt managed to recover from the blinding display of perimeter shooting to comment on the debacle by doing the only thing that seemed appropriate. He said he was sorry, via ESPN's Dave McMenamin:


Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2303509-atlanta-hawks-making-a-power-play-in-the-east-and-other-wednesday-nba-takeaways