The Jeff Teague MVP Experience is still alive and well as Teague led the Atlanta Hawks to a big win in our nation’s capital Tuesday night 106-102 scoring 28 points on 18 shots.
I wrote in the preview for tonight’s game against the Washington Wizards how I expected the match-up to keep an eye on was Teague vs. John Wall, and that turned out to be the case. Al Horford was in foul trouble for the majority of the night, and Nene was a late-game scratch so the two kind of cancelled each other out. Teague had to carry the team, again, and did so in a slightly less efficient way, 8-of-18 from the field, but he was 12-of-15 from the charity stripe and really did a fantastic job picking apart a stingy Wiz defense.
Teague wasn’t alone, though, in elevating the Hawks past the Southeast Division leaders. Reserve stretch-4 and sock aficionado Mike Scott scored 12 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter to give the Hawks the road push they needed to survive a late-game scare by Washington. With the majority of the Hawks’ bench guys struggling to shoot the basketball at the moment, and tonight was no different, Scott’s minutes have become much more important because he’s the Hawks’ closest thing to a sure-thing off the bench right now. When Scott plays like this off the bench, the Hawks seem to always be in much better shape.
If you had told me the Hawks were capable of winning a road game against the first-place team in their division with Kyle Korver making zero 3s and Horford only playing 23 minutes I probably would have laughed in your face. But that was case tonight. Korver went 0-for-3 from the floor and scored a total of 2 points, while Horford added a 7-7-2 line as his consistency woes continue. (I’m still really worried about Horford going forward.)
DeMarre Carroll still has yet to find his shot again as he was 3-of-10 from the floor, Thabo Sefolosha was 1-of-3, Paul Millsap added 17-11, Pero Antic was 2-of-5 and Shelvin Mack found his shot going 5-of-9 from the floor, 2-of-4 from deep, but was still a minus-5 while on the floor for the Hawks tonight. Even when Mack is hitting shots the team the team still struggles while he’s on the floor.
I’ve joked that it’s time Mack is Cory Joseph’d in the head coach Mike Budenholzer’s rotation in favor of Dennis Schroder and Kent Bazemore, but these kinds of nights only reinforce that sentiment. Schroder was +8 on the night and his line always makes you think, “If he was playing 36 minutes a night he’d lead the league in triple-doubles”. Schroder is still playing 16-ish minutes a night, but the rest of those backup guard minutes should probably be allocated to Bazemore over Mack at this point with Bazemore’s propensity to play, or at least try, to lockdown the opposing team’s best guard.
If it sounds like I’m nitpicking at this point, it’s because I am, but all-in-all the Hawks started off Hell Week the right way by defeating a very good Wiz team on the road.
Next Game: Wednesday 7:00 EST vs. Toronto Raptors
