Now, how good are the Hawks?
They are playing so well they can get outrebounded by 19, including by 15 on the offensive glass, and still win.
And win going away.
Atlanta ran its winning streak to 13 games with a 93-82 victory against the Detroit Pistons at Philips Arena in front of a sold out Martin Luther King Day crowd of 19,108 Monday afternoon on national television. The Hawks are a win shy of tying the franchise record for consecutive wins of 14 set between Nov. 16 and Dec. 14, 1993.
The Hawks’ torrid streak also includes wins in 27 of the past 29 games. The team is more than those gaudy numbers.
“We don’t want it to be a streak,” Paul Millsap said. “We want this to be us. We want this to be our mentality. We want this to be our identity. It’s a little bigger than 27 out of 29 (wins). It’s a culture we are trying to build. It’s something about who we want to become.”
The Hawks (34-8, 17-3 home) maintained their five-game lead in the Eastern Conference. They led by as many as 13 points in a game that was sloppy, especially in the first half. The Hawks have held a lead of at least 10 points at some point in each of the 13 games of the current win streak. For the season, they improved to 29-1 in games they have led by double-digits. The team with the NBA’s second-best record has the most home wins in the East and second-most in the league.
Nice start to a seven-game homestand.
Mike Scott and Millsap led the Hawks with a game-high 20 points apiece. Millsap scored in double-figures a team-high 38 times. The Hawks also got double-digit scoring from Al Horford (14), Kyle Korver (13) and Jeff Teague (10).
“It was great to see him have a game like that,” coach Mike Budenholzer said of Scott. “He’s been working so hard. His defense and his activity may have gone unnoticed. Every time he shoots it, he’s like Kyle and we think he’s going to make it. He can get hot. For him to give it to us on both ends, give us that spark off the bench when you are struggling for points, it was great for us.”
Horford, who was chosen Eastern Conference Player of the Week on Monday, was 6 of 9 from the floor. The center is now 33 of 41 (.805) from the field in the past four games. Korver was 3 of 6 from 3-point range. He moved past Dominique Wilkins for fifth place on the franchise’s career list with 502. The sharp-shooter is shooting 29 of 46 (.630) from 3-point range in the past seven games.
The Pistons (16-26) lost for just the third time in 14 games since the release of Josh Smith. Two of the losses have come to the Hawks. Greg Monroe led the Pistons with 16 points and 20 rebounds. Andre Drummond had 13 points and 18 rebounds. He had eight points and 11 rebounds in the first quarter.
Overall, the Pistons outrebounded the Hawks 61-42. They held a 20-5 edge on the offensive glass. The Hawks’ first offensive rebound came with 2:50 left in the third quarter when Pero Antic pulled down two in a row but missed the second and third chances. Despite not having an offensive rebound, the Hawks led 60-56.
“As long as they are not grabbing the offensive rebound and dunking it,” Korver said of the disparity. “We have to play defense again. It’s not ideal. They still shot a percentage we like (35 percent). It’s not the way we want it to work. We don’t want to give up offensive rebounds. Those two guys (Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe) and a load down there. They are big boys. They had to kick it out and we had to play defense again. Eventually we got the stop.”
The Pistons scored just 12 first-quarter points, a low for any quarter this season. They missed 10 of their first 11 shots and had three turnovers as the Hawks built an 11-2 lead. The Hawks led for most of the game. The Pistons held just two leads – of one point each – for a total of 1:23. The Hawks took the lead for good on a Korver 3-pointer with 1:20 left in the first half.
“We held them to 35 percent (shooting),” Horford said. “There were a lot of missed shots, a lot of long rebounds. You have to give them credit. Their bigs rebounded well, too. We did our job as best we could. The best thing was we were able to hold them off.”
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