Sunday, October 17, 2010

Atlanta Hawks Earn First Pre-Season Win

Box Score

Marvin Williams returned to action, scoring 15 points on 10 shots, while Jamal Crawford scored 9 points on 7 shots and earned 5 assists in his exhibition debut, and the Atlanta Hawks beat the New Orleans Hornets* 84-74 in a sparsely attended exhibition game in Johnson City, TN.

*Without David West and Emeka Okafor and with Chris Paul and Trevor Ariza both sitting out the final three quarters.

As for previous concerns, the Hawks committed 16 more turnovers but allowed just 13 points of off them. Joe Johnson was guilty of 4 of those turnovers, but offset those with 22 points on 14 shots. Josh Smith took 6 of his 10 field goal attempts from outside of 20 feet (including a three-point attempt) and, being on a bit of a hot streak from distance, made 2 of those. He's now used 16 of 33 field goal attempts on long jump shots this pre-season.

Larry Drew:
"As I told the guys before the game. It wasn't a concern about what New Orleans did. The focus of this game was on us and what we were to do on both ends of the floor. That's why I played a lot of our guys some pretty good minutes. We need to work on our game. We've got a ways to go."
Maurice Evans also made his exhibition debut, draining a three-pointer and grabbing a rebound in 7 minutes. Jeff Teague again sat out due to his ankle injury.

The Hawks return to meaningless action at 7pm (ET) on Monday, at home against the Orlando Magic, in a game that will be televised, televised, on NBA TV.

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