Atlanta Hawks snap Detroit’s seven-game winning streak
The Atlanta Hawks won their seventh straight game, while simultaneously ending the Detroit Piston’s seven-game winning streak while holding onto a 106-103 victory in Detroit.
The Hawks dominated the first half, outscoring the Pistons 64-45, but made things interesting in the second half when Detroit proceeded to outscore Atlanta in each of the final two periods. But the lead they build during the first half proved to be enough.
Al Horford was a monster for the Hawks in this one, scoring 19 points on 9-of-21 shooting while hauling in 16 rebounds as well. Jeff Teague also picked up a double-double as he continues his fantastic season. The Atlanta point guard dropped 14 points on just 4-for-9 shooting and threw out 11 assists.
Typical of Mike Budenholzer’s 2014-15 team, every starter reached double-digit scoring, while Thabo Sefolosha had one of his better games off of the bench, scoring 12 points on a perfect 5-for-5 from the field.
The Hawks finished shooting 48.8 percent from the field and 43.5 percent (10-for-23) from 3. The ace Kyle Korver went a perfect 3-for-3 from deep while scoring 11 points and DeMarre Carroll went 2-4 from 3 and scored 13 points of his own.
One thing that will need to be improved on next game though are the turnovers, which proved costly in the fourth quarter and helped the Pistons climb back in the game. The Hawks turned the ball over 14 times in this one–four of those coming in the final quarter. Paul Millsap proved to be the main suspect, turning the ball over six times on his own. Still, the big man scored 17 points, picked up seven rebounds and had three assists and a steal.
We’ve started to get used to the Hawks beating everyone, and that’s pretty awesome. With this win, Atlanta now has a three-game lead over the Washington Wizards for first place in the Eastern Conference and they have the second best overall record (28-8) in the NBA along with the Portland Trailblazers–whom they recently beat.
Sunday, the Wizards and Hawks will face off in what could be the biggest game of the season for these teams so far.