Hawks 102 Wizards 98

Boxscore

Gameflow

One consequence of making the playoffs last season and playing competent basketball so far this season is that it's much more difficult to avoid finding out the score of a Hawks game you've taped but not watched yet. It's surely a net positive that people are more interested in the Hawks but I didn't get a pure game-watching experience. No tension for me when the Wizards cut a 15-point lead to 0 a couple of times late in the game. It's an odd experience, knowing the result but not how they got there.

These are the things that stood out:

• Josh Smith getting that technical. Hilarious.
• Acie Law IV playing a long, solid stretch of basketball in the first half then not at all in the second half.
• That 10-minute stretch of Flip Murray in the three-guard lineup would have agitated me no end had I not known that everything would work out in the end.
• I guess Zaza couldn't rather than didn't play in the fourth quarter in Toronto.
• Solomon Jones really struggles to contribute in the second halves of games. A subject for further study.
• Watching Joe Johnson struggle mightily in the fourth quarter only reinforces the need to involve Horford in the offense more. Al's 6 assists help his case as well.
• Mike Bibby's value to the offense probably could be overstated but it would be difficult to do so.