Hawks vs Bucks: Atlanta grinds out ugly win over Milwaukee

The Atlanta Hawks garnered some revenge Saturday night and salvaged a home-and-home split with a 90-85 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. The Hawks came out with a much more focused mindset on Saturday and set the tone defensively early holding Milwaukee to just 10 first quarter points.

"That was a very good defensive effort on the road," Budenholzer said. "We didn't shoot it well, you can call our offense ugly, but our effort and energy were very good."

The offense never really got clicking and the Hawks won despite shooting just 37 percent from the field and 31 percent from three-point range. The Hawks made up for it by working hard on the boards and forcing turnovers which flipped the script with Milwaukee from Friday night's game.

Atlanta out rebounded the Bucks 51-47 in the game and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds. Four different Hawks players grabbed at least eight rebounds. Atlanta also forced 19 turnovers which they were able to turn into 32 points.

It wasn't the high flying, free wheeling offense we have grown accustomed to but this team has shown the ability to get physical and grind out games when it needs to.

Jeff Teague back in force

After a couple of so-so games in his return from a strained hamstring, Jeff Teague did a bit of everything on Saturday in leading the Hawks to another win. Teague finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. He was 7-14 from the field and a perfect 10-10 at the free throw line.

Ten of Teague's 25 points came in the fourth quarter as he got aggressive and attacked the paint with regularity. A big game from Teague was needed because the rest of the point guard options struggled.

Dennis Schröder struggled again on Saturday and went scoreless with a turnover in six first half minutes. Shelvin Mack got a crack at it in the second half and was a bit better but still failed to drive Atlanta's offense. With both struggling, Teague played 37 minutes on Saturday which is about six minutes more than his season average.

Kyle Korver struggles in back-to-back

Its not often that you write the words Kyle Korver and "struggling" in the same sentence but he will be glad to see Milwaukee go. Korver scored just six points on 2-9 shooting and was 2-7 from three-point range overall on Saturday. That followed up a 1-8 shooting performance on Friday. Korver has gone 3-17 from the field over the last two games and is 3-13 from three-point range during that span.

Milwaukee did a good job gumming up Atlanta's offense in the two games. They had the length to help on drives and cuts and still had the athletic ability to recover to contest shooters on the perimeter. That length had Atlanta hesitating at times on the perimeter and the ball stuck much more than we are accustomed to seeing.

On the season Korver is still shooting 49 percent from the field and 51 percent from three-point range so there isn't any reason to worry about him just yet. He's just proving that he is indeed human.