Soaring Hawks RIP Trailblazers

With all of the focus in the NBA’s Eastern Conference squarely on Boston, Cleveland and Orlando the Atlanta Hawks have very quietly been putting together an exceptional season.  They currently have a solid hold on 4^th place in the conference, leading 5^th place Miami by 2 ½ games.  On Sunday they helped galvanize their position with a 98-80 home victory over the Portland Trailblazers.  The victory raised the Hawks’ record at Phillips Arena to an impressive 25-7, and the team has won 5 straight and 7 of their last ten games.

The Trailblazers hung around for the first half, and trailed by only 3 points at the break.  Atlanta pulled away in the second half behind the offensive effort of Joe Johnson, who led the team with 35 points along with 7 rebounds and six assists.  Josh Smith added 19 points and 8 boards, while Mike Bibby chipped in 15 and Al Horford 13.  Portland’s Brandon Roy led his team with 29 points, LaMarcus Aldridge contributed 19 and Joel Przybilla continued his solid play filling in for the injured Greg Oden with 8 points to go along with 14 rebounds.

Atlanta’s recent success has come in tandem with a renewed emphasis on offense by Johnson.  After the game he said that he’s going to keep playing aggressively as long as it continues to produce the desired results:

"It all feels great to come out and put on a good performance, a string of good performances in games we're winning. That makes it even better, man. I'm just trying to be aggressive and make plays."

In the visitors’ locker room, Brandon Roy blamed a lack of intensity by his team for their defeat:

"The Hawks played like the more aggressive team and like they wanted it more. Their movement was better on offense, pushing the ball and getting to the rim. We didn't do anything to try to slow that down. When you let a team run that free at home, you don't stand a chance."

Blazers’ coach Nate McMillan concurred, focusing on his team’s poor defensive showing against Johnson in particular:

"We know what Joe is capable of. He made some tough shots in isolation today. You have to bring energy and more scrap when you play on the road. We have to play with more energy than we did."

Atlanta defeated Portland for only the second time in the last fourteen meetings between the two teams.  They’ll host two other Western Conference teams this week, with Sacramento coming to town on Tuesday and Dallas on Thursday.  They’ll then hit the road for a very tough challenge, playing the Eastern Conference leading Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday.