Another night, another outright evisceration by the Atlanta Hawks.The Hawks went into the Air Canada Centre and taught the Toronto Raptors, one of the East's best during the first half of the 2014-15 NBA season and now with DeMar DeRozan back in tow, a thing or two (or three…or a gazillion) about what it means to really be elite.
Atlanta didn't need some insane scoring run on Friday to blow out Toronto, 110-89. Instead, the Hawks did what they've done ever since they took flight after Thanksgiving: They kept going and going and going and going, like a nest of sleeveless Energizer bunnies.
As it happens, it was against these Raptors that the Hawks last looked truly mortal. On Nov. 26, Toronto stopped into Atlanta for a 126-115 win, which turned out to be the finale of a six-game streak. Back then, the Raptors were the beasts of the East—a 13-2 juggernaut that shot 51.2 percent against the Hawks defense in a contest that put Toronto a full five games up on Atlanta in the standings.
Check the standings now, and you'll find the Hawks right where the Raptors used to be, five-and-a-half games ahead of the NBA's neighbors to the north. Their win in Toronto was their 11th in a row, their 24th in their last 26 outings overall and their 13th in 14 road games.
It was also, arguably, their most impressive result yet in what's been an unbelievable six weeks for the Hawks.
On one end, Atlanta torched Toronto's dithering defense for 60.9 percent shooting—the team's second-highest mark of the season—with its Spursian brand of ball movement. Of the Hawks' 42 makes, 30 were assisted.
Jeff Teague led the way in that department with nine dimes against a single turnover, to go along with 13 points, five rebounds and two steals. Al Horford, in his first action since tallying his first triple-double as a pro against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, added five assists and five boards of his own. Better yet, he didn't miss a single shot from the field (and shot 6-of-7 at the free-throw line), including this baseline jam over Amir Johnson and Jonas Valanciunas:
Teague and Horford aside, the Hawks benefited from four other players (i.e. the three remaining starters and Kent Bazemore) scoring in double figures. Chief among that group was Paul Millsap, who finished his usual stat sheet-stuffing routine with 16 points, eight boards, four assists, three steals and two blocks.
Like Millsap, the Hawks, as a whole, got it done on both ends of the floor. They held the Raptors, the league's third-most efficient offense, to a season-low in scoring on 42.7 percent shooting. Take away DeRozan, who had nearly as good of a game (25 points on 11-of-18 shooting) against the Hawks as he did just before Atlanta's run began (27 points on 8-of-16 shooting), and Toronto's field-goal accuracy plummets to 37.5 percent.
The Hawks pestered the Raptors' typically sure-handed attack into 17 turnovers—four apiece from DeRozan and Amir Johnson. Toronto busted loose for 30 points in the third quarter, behind 13 from DeRozan, but couldn't keep Atlanta from racking up 33 points of its own in the period.
As fantastically well as the Hawks played, nothing about how they romped into Toronto is all that new. Balance and ball movement have been hallmarks of the Hawks' offense since Mike Budenholzer left Gregg Popovich's staff in San Antonio for the top job in Atlanta in 2013. The defense has tightened into the fifth-stingiest in basketball this season, thanks in no small part to an ability to pester passing lanes and create havoc that's taken on a life of its own since late November.
Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2332841-atlanta-hawks-look-unstoppable-in-the-east-and-other-friday-nba-takeaways
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