Hawks showcased deep scoring, not just star power, to dominate the Bucks and extend their winning streak. A balanced attack secured a crucial victory.
The Atlanta Hawks are officially above the .500 mark with their commanding 131-113 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks to improve to 32-31. The victory marked Atlanta's fifth consecutive win.
It was a late tip-off at 9:30 p.m., but Atlanta got the chance to show a national TV audience that they can compete in the Eastern Conference.
When a team scores over 130 points, you would think a specific player had a strong 30 or 40-point performance, but on Wednesday night, everybody ate on the Hawks roster in terms of scoring.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker led the scoring efforts with 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting and five made 3-pointers. Onyeka Okongwu held his own while guarding Giannis Antetokounmpo early, adding 21 points on 9-for-14 shooting. Dyson Daniels shot the ball effectively as well, finishing with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Zaccharie Risacher's shooting struggles have been well-documented, but he showed promise on Wednesday, making 4 3-pointers and scoring 12 points off the bench. Jalen Johnson scored 20 points to round out a really balanced scoring effort by the Hawks — one that almost certainly locks them into a play-in spot.
Alexander-Walker credited the group's approach for the offensive output.
"I think the good thing is, is we played as a group, and we played together, and everybody was aggressive, and they made the right play," he said on the FanDuel Sports broadcast. "And it showed offensively. There was a lot of assists out there, open shots, great looks. I think the quality of our looks were really high."
The Hawks trailed by 16 in the second quarter before clawing their way back, and the key adjustment came when coach Quin Snyder moved Daniels onto Antetokounmpo in the second half. Antetokounmpo, on a minutes restriction in just his second game back from a right calf strain, was limited to just eight points after halftime.
Snyder didn't hold back when asked about what Daniels brought defensively.
"It's hard to come up with the superlatives for him defensively," Snyder said. "The fact that he can guard across different positions — you're not going to stop Giannis, but you can, as we said, try to make it hard."
Alexander-Walker echoed that, explaining how the rest of the team fed off the switch.
"I think that cross-match kind of gave them everything they wanted — they're getting to the basket, they're getting threes, they're getting offensive rebounds," he said. "I think Dyson just embraced the challenge, and being amazing as a player, he was able to get us some stops, and we kind of just picked up off him. We knew that we're going to have his back, and I think we moved as a unit as well."
Snyder also touched on what has made this group click, pointing to an unselfishness that's been the throughline during the winning streak.
"It's so new to each other — and the thing I'm most impressed with about what they're doing is how unselfish they are," he said. "Everybody's sacrificing something for one another. When you look at the shot attempts, we almost had six guys with double-figure shots. That's a group that's sharing the ball."
However, the tricky thing for the Hawks at this juncture is that they are keeping pace with the Charlotte Hornets, who also have a winning streak of their own, currently at six consecutive victories. Charlotte is the hottest team in the NBA, winners of 19 of their last 25 games. So despite the five-game winning streak, the Hawks have not been able to pick up any ground in the Eastern Conference standings, but have instead just further separated themselves from the 11-seed.
Looking ahead, the Hawks will have another big Eastern Conference showdown with the 76ers — who could be without Joel Embiid — on Saturday. Atlanta will head home for a five-game home stretch. After the 76ers, the schedule gets more favorable with the Dallas Mavericks and Brooklyn Nets both on deck.