The Atlanta Hawks (9-25) scored their second consecutive victory against the Washington Wizards (19-16) with a 113-99 (BOXSCORE) win – a premiere for the Hawks in the current season. In addition to the strong Dennis Schröder, Marco Belinelli is particularly convincing. The wizards disappoint all along the line.
After the impressive victory of the Wizards at Christmas against Boston, the NBA’s daily routine in Atlanta waited. The statistics show that Washington has had problems with this so far: Against teams with a negative record, Washington only won 9 victories at 9 defeats. And the engine stuttered against the Hawks at first.
Although the guests were off to an offensive start – an 8-0 run brought in an early 10-point lead – the Hawks were held in the game by their own lack of concentration, among other things. A balanced halftime (57:55 Washington) was the order of the day.
The third section developed very similarly. Washington did not manage to distance themselves from the field, so the Hawks took the lead for the first time after three free throws from strong Marco Belinelli (19 points, 7/11 FG) in the middle of the quarter.
With a threesome in the face of ex-team-mate Mike Scott, the Italian further expanded the Hawks lead at the beginning of the final stage. Approximately four minutes to the end the lead was 11 points after a strong action by Dennis Schröder. Washington was unable to recover from this. The German scored 21 points, distributed 7 assists and grabbed 4 rebounds. Ersan Ilyasova confirmed his good form with 20 points and 9 rebounds.
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On the other hand, nothing came together in the final quarter. The wizards made the last round at 23:35, especially John Wall (10 points, 11 assists), but there was not much to see. Bradley Beal scored 20 points, Marcus Morris scored 18 points and 8 rebounds.
However, they could not prevent the next defeat against a team with a negative result. The Hawks, on the other hand, celebrated two consecutive victories for the first time this season.
Hawks vs. Wizards: Click here for the BOXSCORE!
Marco Belinelli. The 31-year-old’s strong performance. Coming from the bank, Belinelli immediately found the game well and was always dangerous with his backdoor cuts or the partially unapproachable threesomes. For the Hawks this evening he was an extremely important weapon in the offense, which the guests couldn’t control.
John Wall. Actually, the game for the Point Guard started quite successfully with 4 quick assists. But then Wall went deeper and deeper. In the end he only had 9 litter attempts, his 10 points were simply not enough.
The strength of the Hawks lies in the transition this season. With fast breaks, Schröder and Co. the unsorted defenses, but against Washington there was little to see. The Wizards forced their opponents to many half-field attacks, in which the Hawks surprised Washington time and again with strong cuts away from the ball. Belinelli in particular came to some open-minded players. In Washington, there was a lack of concentration to stop the simple but effective actions of the Hawks.