Atlanta Hawks: About last night

• A look at the plus-minus shows the Hawks dominated even more than the score suggested. Only a couple turnover-plagued, scoring-challenged stints by Atlanta’s subs prevented this from being a total beat down instead of a blowout (understandable since Chicago’s second unit is better defensively than the starters).
• The Hawks showed they meant business on the very first play of the game. Joakim Noah won the tip, but Al Horford stepped in front of a sleepy Derrick Rose to corral the ball. Horford powered over Rose before help could arrive to start Atlanta’s 12-1 run.
• “It seemed like that was a momentum booster,” Joe Johnson said. “I thought that was a game-changing moment in itself.”
• Chicago really only had one competitive stretch after that. Atlanta’s subs tried to pressure the Bulls early in the second quarter and it backfired. The Bulls scored six points off three turnovers as Taj Gibson, Omer Asik and Kyle Korver got them back in the game.
• The Hawks buried the Bulls in the last four minutes of the first half with an electric display of defensive energy and shot-making. Vladimir Radmanovic, playing in place of injured Marvin Williams, made two of his five 3-pointers (on five attempts) during that 18-2 burst.
• Atlanta didn’t let up after halftime. Joe scored on Js and drives, Jeff Teague set up Horford for an open jumper, Josh Smith scored at the rim on a sharp pass from Joe, Vlad Rad made another 3 and Smith scored on an oop from Teague. The Bulls, meanwhile, couldn’t score at the rim (Al had key blocks against Noah and Luol Deng) and couldn’t hold onto the ball against Atlanta’s swarming D.
• Zaza Pachulia finally got an extended stint and delivered with five rebounds, 3 for 5 shooting (including a couple nice finishes at the rim!) and a steal. Zaza works well together with Tracy McGrady, who is always calling for Zaza for pick-and-rolls. You can see that McGrady has learned that he can’t put as much mustard on his passes to Zaza.
• The Hawks never let Rose (3 for 10 shooting, five turnovers) find his rhythm. Teague rediscovered his defensive mojo. Atlanta blitzed Rose to make him give up the ball and surrounded him with their long bodies to cut off his space.
• “Get up on the pick and roll,” Teague said of the plan vs. Rose. “We sat back the first game and he picked us apart and made threes. So we brung it up and tried to get up on him more and let him see bodies.”
• “It’s not an individual effort with that guy,” Smith said. “You have to build walls in transition. We did a good team job on him defensively: crowding him, trapping him and giving him different looks.”
• When the Hawks move the ball like they did in this game, even an elite defensive team like Chicago looks a step slow. Those 32 assists on 47 field goals don’t even fully capture how crisp the Hawks looked.
• Once the Hawks started making shots, they started hawking the ball, getting steals, running the floor and everything came together.
• “That’s what it’s all about, playing together as a team,” Josh said. “Whenever we are that unselfish on the offensive end, guys are more willing to make that extra push on the defensive end.”
• “We were on a string,” Teague said. “We really got out in transition. That’s something we haven’t been doing lately. We’ve been halfcourt team the last couple games.”
• “On defense, we were right there,” Al said. “I think that’s what triggers our team, when we help each other.”
• Vlad Rad is officially out of his slump and eventually should approach his career norms. “Guys like him that get on a roll, they can just make shots in bunches,” Larry Drew said. “Every shot he takes, it looks like it was going in. He hit a couple early and you could see he was kind of feeling it.”
• Zaza took the credit: “He had Georgian food for first time today.” Vlad Rad: “Now I will eat at Zaza’s place for every pregame meal.”
• Even with the hot shooting night, Vlad passed up a couple open 3s. He’s such a clever player that sometimes it looks as if he over-thinks things instead of just letting it fly. And there are times when that cleverness leads to his teammates not being ready for his passes.
• This was the first game in which both Joe and Vlad Rad were making shots. It made a big difference.
• A night after attacking the rim with abandon, Josh was back to taking (and making) jump shots. But I’m wondering if fatigue didn’t play a factor in that. He used plenty of his juice for defense and finished with six blocked shots and four steals.
• In addition to his good work on D, Teague (6 of 8 shooting, 8 assists, no turnovers) finished strong at the basket while finding the perfect balance between attacking to score and looking to set guys up. “When Teague is aggressive like that, we are a different club,” Drew said. “When he is in attack mode, he gives us another weapon. He can turn the corner and finish on big guys. More importantly, it breaks their defense down.”
• About the only negatives for the Hawks were the six free-throw attempts (which hardly mattered with the way they were shooting 3s) and the 43-31 rebounding deficit (which mostly was due to their troubles dealing with Asik’s size ).
• By the way, the Hawks made all six of those free-throw attempts. Go figure.
• Marvin suffered that the team said is a Grade 1 ankle sprain in the first half and didn’t return. “It will probably be a situation where we are playing Vladi more at the three until we see Marvin’s status,” Drew said.
• The Hawks had the toughest schedule in the league to start the season. They came out of it with a 6-3 record and splits with Chicago and Miami.
• “Decent,” Joe said. “It wasn’t what we wanted it to be. Realistically we could have been 8-1. We let a couple get away. We have just got to try to validate this by stringing some more wins together.”
• “I think we did good,” Josh said. “It was still a little disappointing because we let a couple games get away from us. All in all I think we did a good job. We showed resilience and we played together.”
• “I think we did pretty good,” Al said. “There’s definitely a ceiling to do better. But 6-3, I will take it. It’s nine games in a short stretch of time, I will definitely take that.”
• “I think we did pretty good,” Teague said. “We let two slide. We wish we could get back. But it’s a long season. That many games in that short span, your body gets tired. I think we did a great job playing three in a row.”
• Atlanta’s schedule eases over the next week in terms of quality of opponent but the Hawks have to avoid slip-ups. “It’s not over with,” Josh said. “We have got to keep playing together. We’ve got to keep doing whatever it takes to win. We’ve got to stay focused and stay together.”

Michael Cunningham, Hawks beat