MILWAUKEE — The Hawks were wary of Monta Ellis — and for good reason.
Ellis scored a game-high 33 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter, to do in the Hawks on Tuesday night.
The guard, acquired at the trade deadline from the Warriors, was too much down the stretch en route to a 108-101 victory at the Bradley Center.
“I’ve always been a big Monta Ellis fan,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said before the game. “He is, in a lot of ways, similar to Joe Johnson. He can really score once he gets it going.
“As far as playing [the Bucks playing up-tempo since the trade], that doesn’t change. They just have another guy to break the defense down and put points on the board.”
The Hawks (30-21) had a four-game win streak snapped and lost for only the second time in the past eight games. Josh Smith led the Hawks with 30 points and 18 rebounds. The Hawks will return home Wednesday to host the Bulls.
The Bucks (23-27), fighting for a playoff spot, also received 18 points from Brandon Jennings.
The Hawks used a 17-4 run to close the third quarter, erasing an eight-point halftime deficit, and took a 79-78 lead. Jeff Teague’s short jumper with less than 8.9 seconds remaining in the third quarter gave the Hawks their first lead since they led 17-16 with 5:46 remaining in the first quarter. Six different Hawks scored during the third-quarter run.
Then Ellis took over.
The Bucks jumped on the Hawks midway through the opening quarter. They ended the period on a 15-6 run to take an eight-point lead at 31-25. The Bucks shot 53.8 percent in the first quarter with Ellis leading the way with 10 points.
The Hawks, by stark contrast, shot only 39.1 percent from the field and committed 10 turnovers. Leading scorer Joe Johnson played only the opening two minutes, 18 seconds of the first quarter after leaving to get stitches inside his lip. He returned early in the second.
The Bucks built a 17-point lead in the second quarter before Smith caught fire. Smith was accessed a technical foul early in the period after shouting “And one” to an official after scoring an inside basket in which he thought he was fouled.
Smith, who scored only two points in the first quarter, had 17 points at the half. He scored 13 of the Hawks’ final 17 points of the second quarter — including the final nine — to trim the disadvantage back to nine points at the intermission, 55-46.
The Hawks were playing their fourth game in five days — including Sunday’s four-overtime thrilling win over the Jazz — and Drew was concerned how his team would respond.
“There are just some guys where fatigue has started to settle in a little bit,” Drew said before the game. “We are just in a stretch of the season where we’ve played a lot of games — certainly three in three nights and the way those games panned out it put a little tear on us. But this is the NBA. Other teams have to go through similar situations — maybe not four overtimes. We’ve just got to gut it up.”
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