The Atlanta Hawks will start Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, DeShawn Stevenson, Josh Smith, and Al Horford tonight against the Golden State Warriors. Anthony Morrow will sit out the game with a sore back. The Warriors have a bigger lineup with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, David Lee, and Festus Ezeli. While the Warriors will have a size advantage, Ezeli is a below average scorer so the matchup with Horford should not produce too many scoring opportunities for the Warriors. The main concern is on the boards, where the Warriors are the top defensive rebounding team in the NBA. David Lee is rebounding the ball at an incredible rate, and his back-up Carl Landry is one of the top offensive rebounding forwards in the league. Smith, Horford, and the rest of the Hawks frontline will have to be very conscious of boxing out in order to limit the Warriors high-powered offense to just one shot attempt per possession. Golden State is playing their seventh game of a long East Coast road trip, and their second game in a back-to-back coming off a disappointing loss to the Magic, so the Hawks will need to bring energy early and often to try and wear down the Warriors in order to avenge their loss in Oakland earlier in the year.
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