Atlanta Hawks top Portland Trailblazers for 18th stright win
The Atlanta Hawks took down the Portland Trailblazers 105-99 without one of their regular starters Friday night to extend their winning streak to 18 games.
Forward DeMarre Carroll didn’t play in this one thanks to a left Achilles strain, and his replacement, Thabo Sefolosha, managed just two minutes before coming out with an injury of his own. Sefolosha went down with a right calf strain to really put the Hawks in a corner on the wing.
But this offseason proved especially useful tonight, as Kent Bazemore filled in admirably, playing 40 minutes for the team. The shooting guard finished with 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting and added five rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals.
The Trailblazers got another huge night out of LaMarcus Aldridge, but it wasn’t enough to bring Atlanta’s streak to an end. The big man scored a game-high 37 points on an extremely efficient 15-of-24 from the floor and brought down 11 of Portland’s 46 rebounds.
The Hawks managed to limit the other Trailblazers fairly well though, and held them to under 100 points–the first time Atlanta has managed that in the past three games.
As for the Hawks starters, it was a pretty balanced effort. Paul Millsap led the way with 21 points, but Al Horford, Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague weren’t too far behind. The three scored 17, 16 and 13 points respectively and most managed a decent clip from the field. Teague’s 6-for-17 shooting from the field was the worst mark by percentage, but the team still managed to shoot 47.6 percent from the field and 47.8 percent from 3.
Mike Scott came off the bench and actually had the best night for the team from behind the arc, shooting a perfect 3-for-3 from deep and adding 11 points in his 14 minutes on the court.
Once again, Mike Budenholzer has shown that his team is capable of taking down incredibly talented groups–and this time they did it
a man
two men down. Just add that to the list of all the impressive things that the Hawks have done this season.