vs. 
Hawks Offensive Rating: 107.9 (10th)
Wizards Offensive Rating: 104.9 (20th)
Hawks Defensive Rating: 108.1 (23rd)
Wizards Defensive Rating: 101.3 (6th)
***
The Atlanta Hawks successfully corrected course Friday night in Phillips Arena as the team knocked off a struggling Detroit Pistons team. After losing to the Los Angeles Lakers earlier in the week, the team could not afford to drop another gimme home game to a less-talented foe in Detroit.
The Hawks, to this point, have been a very mediocre basketball team that really needs its best player to return to form. That player being, of course, Al Horford. Atlanta needs Horford to be the 20-9-3 (per 36 minutes) player he was a year ago before going down with another season-ending injury. Thus far, Horford is averaging a 16-7-3 line (per 36 minutes), which many signal to mean Horford still is not 100 percent. (Zach Lowe of Grantland mentioned in a recent podcast he’s talked with people in the Hawks organization that agree Horford still isn’t 100 percent.)
Why is Horford’s return to form so important, especially now? Well, after a very easy slate of games last week the Hawks find themselves matched up with the Washington Wizards, Toronto Raptors, New Orleans Pelicans and the Charlotte Hornets throughout the course of this week. The Hawks were thrown a bit of a bone by the Scheduling Gods, however, as the Raptors, Pelicans and Hornets are all home games for Atlanta. Although, the Hawks will have to face the Raps on a back-to-back following tonight’s game in Washington while also playing an increasingly distressed Charlotte team on a back-to-back following Friday night’s game against Anthony Davis and Friends.
What do these four teams also have in common? They all have dominant, physical big men that Horford is going to have to defend and score on in above-average fashion if the Hawks hope to come out victorious in this slate of games. 16-7-3 is not going to be enough with Marcin Gortat, Nene, Amir Johnson, Jonas Valanciunas, Anthony Davis, Omer Asik, Cody Zeller and Al Jefferson on Horford and Paul Millsap’s, too, plate over the course of the week.
The Hawks have been very good at home, 5-1, but before they can return to their comfort zone in the Highlight Factory they have to go through a surging Wizards team that sits at 9-3 and atop of the Southeast Division.
The match-up to watch tonight will be how effective John Wall is in defending Jeff Teague. Teague has been the Hawks’ MVP thus far, but in games where Teague hasn’t been the better point guard overall the Hawks are 0-3 ( Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker, Kyle Lowry). Teague will need to outplay Wall on both ends of the floor for the Hawks to have a shot tonight.
On the flipside, the Wizards currently hold League’s 6th-best defense and will look to shut down Teague from getting to the line and getting high-quality shots close to the hoop. If they’re effective in that area, and Teague doesn’t go at Nene and Gortat early-and-often then it will be on Horford and Millsap to step up.
Prediction: Boveda has the Wizards at -5, which seems about right. Hawks lose, but still cover. But man, stealing a win in Washington would be really, really big for this club.
