Hawks ride Millsap and guards past LeBron-less Cavs

For all the oddities in Tuesday night’s 109-101 win over the scuffling Cavs, the Hawks may have learned that so long as their backcourt comes to play, they’ll have a shot at beating Cleveland whether LeBron James plays or not.

Jeff Teague went for 23 points and 11 assists, Kyle Korver re-discovered his shooting stroke to score 19, and reserve point guard Dennis Schroder broke a slump to add 11 points and four assists.

Throw in 26 points – 10 in the fourth quarter – and nine rebounds from Paul Millsap, and Atlanta won for the 16th time in 18 games.

This was strange, though.

Atlanta center Al Horford was scratched just moments before tipoff because of illness, and James was in civvies for the visitors while nursing a sore knee. Cleveland also went without veteran Shawn Marion (ankle sprain), and Cavs All-Star forward Kevin Love didn’t play past the early part of the third quarter because his back tightened.

So the Hawks (23-8) beat the Cavs (18-13) for the second time in two weeks with at least one common denominator: something special happened in the backcourt each time.

Tuesday, it was Teague putting together one of his best games and Korver going 7-for-11, including 5-of-8 on 3-pointers, after a 3-for-17 “slump” over the previous two games. Teague scored 11 in the first half, as the Hawks built a 51-41 edge.

Schroder made just 3-of-20 shots while averaging 2.7 points over the previous three games. Tuesday, his resurgence helped the Hawks look to be back on track regardless of who was playing for either team.

“Even if one of them hasn’t had a particularly good game, or a couple of games, I think we all expect them to play well every night,” said Hawks head coach Mike Budenholzer. “For Dennis to bounce back after a couple of tough games … I think it’s a credit to him and the assistant coaches working with him.

“Kyle’s Kyle’; he’s going to make shots. We’re kind of spoiled that way.”

Atlanta needed big nights from the guards to offset Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving. He scored 22 of his 35 in the second half.

Millsap and Teague combined for Atlanta’s final 14 points, after the Cavs pulled within a shot for the fifth time in the fourth quarter, to put the game away. Before that, Korver pulsed the Hawks with eight points in the period. He hit all three of his shots in the stanza, including two long balls.