Atlanta Hawks: Rapid Reaction to Thorough Drubbing of Bulls

Rapid reactions to the Atlanta Hawks easy defeat of the Chicago Bulls on the road.

Representative of the team’s recent uptick, the Atlanta Hawks flipped the script in Chicago tonight and outplayed the Bulls from the opening tip – leading to a wire-to-wire win in which Atlanta outscored the Bulls 42 to 25 in the first quarter.

This was a truly dominating performance for these young Hawks, and even though it might hurt draft position, this shows that the team’s future is far brighter than Chicago’s, as the Hawks’ young guns turned up the heat and bested Chicago with relative ease.

The Hawks shot 37.5 percent from long range and gut up a whopping 40 three-pointers, and they had 13 more offensive possessions than the Bulls (90 to 79).

The Hawks outrebounded the Bulls 51 to 37, out-assisted the Bulls 31 to 20 and out-stole the Bulls 11 to 7. Much of the team’s success came via its starters, who completely dominated their respective matchups – specifically John Collins.

JC continued his amazing string of great games with a tour de force in Chicago against Lauri Markkanen, the player who was chosen over JC as a member of the All-Rookie First Team last season.

Though Markkanen logged 22 points on 8 of 16 shooting with 6 rebounds, Collins completely overshadowed the Finnish seven-footer.

JC finished with an incredible stat line: 35 points on 14 of 16 shooting, including a perfect 4 of 4 from three and 3 of 3 from the line, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and a sky-high +33 on/off rating.

Those 35 points represent a new career-high, as well as the highest point total of any Atlanta Hawks player this season (Trae Young also notched 35 early in the season against the Cavs).

Trae had perhaps his worst game of the season shooting the ball as he went 1 of 12 from the field with only 5 points, but the funny part is, he still had a great game. Notching 12 assists and 7 rebounds will do that for you, as will a +24 on/off rating.

The Atlanta Hawks play next on Saturday in Portland. The West Coast swing means tip-off is 10:00 p.m. EST.