Atlanta Hawks win fifth straight, defeat Pistons 107-100

The Atlanta Hawks move to 19-12 on the year by defeating the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night, 107-100. Atlanta improves its winning streak to five games.

The Atlanta Hawks played a strong game against a team in the Detroit Pistons that is normally not a good matchup for them. Detroit has an unreal rebounder in center Andre Drummond and are a great outside shooting team. Atlanta is below average both on the glass and in perimeter defense.

However, the Atlanta Hawks were able to a fantastic second quarter, outscoring the Pistons 34-19 en route to a seven-point home victory. The Atlanta Hawks defeated the Detroit Pistons Wednesday night at Philips Arena 107-100 to move to 19-12 on the year. Atlanta has now won five straight games in the last eight days.

Early in the game, the Atlanta Hawks used the Hack-a-Dre defensive strategy to send the poor free throw shooting Andre Drummond to the charity stripe. Though Drummond had a double-double Wednesday night (25 points, 12 rebounds), he was 7-18 from the free throw line, thus justifying the Atlanta Hawks’ logic to deploy the intentional foul of the worst foul shooter in the NBA. Detroit was an awful 51.5% from the line Wednesday night.

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Because of Drummond’s abysmal free throw shooting, Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy had to pull him out of the game early in the second quarter and that was when the Atlanta Hawks took over the game. Without Drummond in the low post to rim protect, point guard Jeff Teague led the Atlanta Hawks in their crushing second quarter effort.

Teague led the Atlanta Hawks with 23 points on 10-19 shooting. He was an assist shy of a double-double, as well as having six rebounds and four steals. Four other Atlanta Hawks had double-figures in scoring. Paul Millsap had 18 points and Al Horford had 15 in the starting frontcourt.

Dennis Schroder had 14 points and five assists off the Atlanta bench. Tiago Splitter had a great game with 11 points and rebounds against a physical Pistons team down low. This was one of Splitter’s better games since coming to the Atlanta Hawks. His energy in the paint was a big reason the Hawks were able to hang on to their fifth straight victory.

Next: Atlanta Hawks win fourth straight, beat Blazers 106-97

The Atlanta Hawks will have Christmas Eve and Day off before hosting Carmelo Anthony, Kristaps Porzingis and the New York Knicks on the 26th. Tipoff for that game is at 7:30 PM ET. Atlanta is starting to gain some momentum in the tight Eastern Conference. Hopefully they can push the winning streak to six games. Let’s Go Hawks!