Atlanta Hawks: Hawks 110, Bucks 85

• I couldn’t decide on the strangest sight tonight: Joe in a giant headband, Joe playing like an All-Star shotmaker or he and the other Hawks regulars laughing and joking on the bench in the fourth quarter of a blowout W.
• It had been a while since all of those things happened for the Hawks.
• “We haven’t had a win like this, I don’t think, all year,” L.D. said. “This was a huge win against a very quality team.”
• Well the Bucks are a quality defensive team, at least. Not many opponents shoot well against the Bucks, and that could have meant trouble for the Hawks if they came out jump-shot happy, missed, and kept jacking.
• Instead they came out running and J.J., wearing his magic headband, couldn’t miss.
• “That was the Joe of Old,” Drew said.
• Suddenly everything that hadn’t been working for so long was clicking. J.J. made runners, post-ups, pull-ups, baseline turnarounds and 3-pointers. Lots and lots of 3-pointers, including five in a row as the Hawks buried the Bucks in the first half.
• “It was just a feeling, and I just let it go,” he said.
• Joe looked spry on defense, too.
• “He was fighting through screens,” Drew said. “He just had a solid, solid overall game on both ends of the floor. He was making shots, but I thought defensively he did a tremendous job as well.”
• J.J. said two days off helped him feel better. I’m thinking this means that L.D. needs to find him as many days off as possible.
• The Hawks aren’t going anywhere if Joe can’t play up to his usual level. This has to be the start of something for him.
• “It gives us a lot of confidence,” Al said. “When Joe is going like that, he’s as good as anyone in the league. I’m really happy for him tonight to get it going and hopefully it starts building some momentum for him for the playoffs.”
• The Hawks ran smart tonight. Five of their 12 field goals in the first quarter came by way of fast breaks and there weren’t many of the silly turnovers they had against the Blazers. Atlanta would have had more transition points if the Bucks hadn’t fouled a few times to prevent easy run-outs.
• It’s encouraging for the Hawks to run against an opponent that’s capable of grinding them down in the half court.
• “With the change in the lineup, it has allowed us to get out a little bit more in transition, particularly with Jeff Teague,” Drew said. “I thought Kirk did a good job as well. We got stops and we got our break going. Both Al and Josh Smith did a great job of running the floor. We put a lot of emphasis on that before the game. We really wanted to make Bogut run the floor, get him up and down.”
• Brandon Jennings is Milwaukee’s speed guy but Teague had him tied up. It was one thing for Teague to get into Andre Miller’s chest and keep him from getting near the basket, quite another for him to do the same to Jennings.
• “You look at Teague’s line, you may not be impressed from a numbers standpoint, but I thought he set the tone early with Jennings,” L.D. said. “He got up on him early at the half court, picked him up some in the back court. To be honest, in the past, we weren’t able to do that.”
• Bogut got his but he didn’t get much help so the Bucks had no chance to match Atlanta’s hot scoring.
• “Everyone played solid on the defensive end, we helped each other out like we should play,” Al said. “They came in here earlier in the year and beat us pretty bad, so we didn’t forget that game.”
• There were times when the Bucks looked as if they would rather be somewhere else. Salmons was the worst offender.
• “We had trouble getting back on defense early in the game and we looked a little bit tired,” Scott Skiles said. “We tried to put fresher bodies in there but that didn’t work. It was just one of those games where we didn’t play very well. . . . They dictated to us instead of us to them.”
• It’s clear Smoove doesn’t have the same spring in his legs and really hasn’t for much of the season. But he’s still managing to dig out rebounds, challenge shots and finish dunks on the break. Now if he can just cut down on the turnovers.
• This was another strong defensive rebounding game for the Hawks, who collected 36 of Milwaukee’s 50 misses (plus three team rebounds). A subpar game on the boards from Al (five rebounds) was offset by Josh’s 14 rebounds and a combined 13 from Joe, Teague and Hinrich.
• “We make it a point for our guards to get in there,” Drew said. “We use the term ‘gang rebound.’ It’s not just for the big guys, it’s for everybody. It’s got to be everybody in there on the glass and chasing down loose balls.”
• Marvin doesn’t like to come off the bench but it seems like he gets right to work when he’s a reserve. He was strong and confident while taking the Bucks into the post.
• Jamal scored just four points on four shots but had eight assists against three turnovers.
• Damien has scored in double figures in three of the last four games.
• Circumstances dictate that Ken S. takes over for the next few days, blog people. Be cool until I get back.

Michael Cunningham, Hawks beat