Atlanta Hawks Beat New Orleans Pelicans, 106-98

The Atlanta Hawks get back to their winning ways by defeating the New Orleans at home in Philips Arena by the score of 106 to 98 Wednesday night.

The Atlanta Hawks’ relentless schedule in November may have cost the team Monday night versus the Minnesota Timberwolves, but the Hawks were able to complete their season sweep of the New Orleans Pelicans Wednesday night, 106-98.

Atlanta did not know until shortly before tipoff that Pelicans superstar big man Anthony Davis would not play because of a hip contusion. Though the Pelicans shot extraordinarily well from the outside in the first half, it was the all-around solid play of Al Horford and the Atlanta Hawks that earned the club its eighth win on the season.

Horford was outstanding in this game. He had 26 points on 11 of 15 shooting, including an eye-popping 4 of 6 from three-point range. Al had a game high +14 plus/minus and 8 rebounds. Strangely enough, he didn’t make it to the free throw line tonight with his game high 26 points.

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The Atlanta Hawks were able to offset the Pelicans’ strong outside shooting (48.3% from three) because of their surprisingly better rebounding game. Atlanta out-rebounded New Orleans 51-48 without Davis being in there for the Pelicans.

Besides Horford, both Paul Millsap and Jeff Teague had stellar games. In fact, they each had a double-double, with Millsap’s 19 points and 16 rebounds and Teague’s 14 points and 10 assists.

This early perpetual onslaught of games hasn’t been easy for the Atlanta Hawks. The club seems to play a game every 48 hours, sometimes sooner. However, the team sits at 8-2 and has still yet to lose away from Philips Arena. The only bad loss for the Hawks in the first part of the season was the home opener to the Detroit Pistons. André Drummond is such a monster down low for the Pistons.

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Atlanta will take on the Boston Celtics Friday night in the TD Garden. Tipoff is at 7 PM ET. This is an exciting game since Atlanta and Boston have such history in their rivalry. Though the Celtics have had the upper hand for most of it, Atlanta is the better team in 2015-16.

However, weird stuff almost always seems to happen when these two teams meet. In two games between these rivals, each team overcame a major deficit to beat the other last season. Boston is 3-4 while your Atlanta Hawks are now 8-2. This club is resilient and can thrive in adverse circumstances like a grueling schedule in the first part of the year. Let’s Go Hawks!