Takeaways from an entertaining and rewarding 106-98 Atlanta Hawks victory over the class of the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets.
On a night when Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United provided the city of Atlanta an exceedingly rare championship, the Atlanta Hawks also provided a stirring victory – albeit with far lower stakes.
This Hawks game was action-packed and full of plenty of highlights, fitting for a game where the Hawks outplayed a team that came in with a record of 17-8. Though the Nugs were severely undermanned without major pieces Gary Harris, Paul Millsap and Will Barton, this was still a well-played game for the Atlanta Hawks after a string of duds (the Hawks came in as the losers of 4 straight).
Though the Nugs jumped out to a huge 15-point lead in the first half, the Hawks clamped down hard on defense and forced a 37.1 percent shooting night from the field for the Nugs and a 25 percent clip from beyond the three-point arc.
After a string of tough losses, it was nice to see the Hawks pull up a hard-fought victory at home in front of a surprisingly raucous crowd at State Farm Arena. Read on to explore 7 takeaways to this scintillating victory over the Nugs.