In a must-see game that ended 110-107 in favor of the Celtics, the Atlanta Hawks continued to build on their momentum from the win against the Cavaliers to push the top seeded team in the East all the way.
Kyrie did stuff at the end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/LnLRyQbgpb
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) November 7, 2017
Now boasting a record of 2-9, the Hawks are still bottom of the Eastern Conference, but have proven that their record is not indicative of their ability. In two tough back-to-back games, they walked out of Cleveland with a victory and almost caught out the Celtics at Philips Arena.
Big games from Dennis Schroder, Dewayne Dedmon, and the return of form by Marco Belinelli allowed the Hawks to stay with the Celtics until the very end. It was the heroics of Kyrie Irving, Al Horford, and rookie Jayson Tatum that ultimately saw the game out for the Celtics.
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Dennis finished with 23 points and 6 assists and the best +/- on the team with +7. He had a quiet second half however, after doing most of his work in the first. He took advantage of Irving’s poor defensive acumen, but Kyrie made up for it with a large performance in the 4th quarter.
Dedmon exploded in arguably his best game of the season, posting 19 points and 12 rebounds and had a +/- of 4. He gave Al Horford and Aron Baynes a lot of problems down low and with his activity on the glass.
And last, but not least, last night saw the return of the Italian deadeye Belinelli who put in a cool 19 in 26 minutes with a +/- of 5. He was the presence off the bench that the Hawks needed to stay competitive with the #1 seed in the East.
https://twitter.com/ATLHawks/status/927908979769974784
The Atlanta Hawks have certainly announced to the association that although they won’t compete for the playoffs this year, they are coming out every night to prove themselves. This can only lead to more positives in the future and Hawks fans should certainly not be discouraged from the less-than-ideal record at this point in time.
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Next on the agenda, the Hawks will travel to play against the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 10th. The Pistons are another team that are hot right now and the Hawks frontcourt will have their hands full with Pistons big man Andre Drummond and company.