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The Atlanta Hawks led wire-to-wire on Wednesday dispatching the Indiana Pacers 110-91 to tie the franchise record with 14 consecutive wins. The win also clinched a spot for Mike Budenholzer and his coaching staff in New York to coach the Eastern Conference All-Stars at the 2015 NBA All-Star Game.
Still this team is not about individual accolades and they are sheepishly shy about discussing such. With Wednesday's win as an example, go up and down the roster and you see a variety of contributions. All 12 players who dressed scored. Atlanta shot 50 percent from the field in the game. They knocked down 13 three-pointers and recorded 30 assists on 39 made field goals. The Hawks finished with 110 points yet no individual player had more than 17.
Defensively they held the Pacers to just 39 percent shooting. They were active with 12 steals and forced Indiana into 18 turnovers. They also ended the game with a 43-42 rebounding edge over a much bigger Indiana front line.
Perhaps no single play represents this game as well as DeMarre Carroll getting a deflection and diving on the floor to secure the loose ball with the Hawks leading 78-53 late in the third quarter.
"In the third quarter, there were several plays where our defense led to some transition opportunities and different guys making shots," said Budenholzer following the game. "Obviously, Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague hit a three, and DeMarre Carroll, his play tonight, whether it was making three's, making assists or diving on the ball with four minutes to go and a decent lead, he's still laying it out there. DeMarre is a big part of us; a big part of our spirit, kind of symbolic of how competitive we want our group to be, no matter what the score is. I love his effort from both ends of the court. It fuels his group, and everybody feeds off of it."
Carroll's enthusiasm and grit is contagious and you can see his teammates feed off of it. He tied for the team lead with 17 points against the Pacers to go along with four assists and four steals.
We just have to do the little things to be a good team," said Jeff Teague. Plays like that from DeMarre today, that's what we have to do to be successful."
Korver, Antic dunks provide highlight plays for the Hawks
Typically, the Hawks aren't the team that is going to provide tons of highlight plays that dominate the airways unless you are a basketball purist who loves to watch good ball movement. However, they provided a couple of highlight plays with a pair of big dunks from two unlikely sources.
Kyle Korver nearly broke Twitter when he finished the break with a one-hand slam early in the second quarter.
One of the most impressive parts of Korver's dunk was that it was Atlanta's center Al Horford who pushed the ball up the floor and delivered a pinpoint pass to Korver. Apparently that dunk also earned Korver $100 from teammate Elton Brand.
Kyle Korver wins $100 bet with Elton Brand. Korver dunked before Brand made a 3-pointer. #ATLHawks
— Chris Vivlamore (@CVivlamoreAJC) January 22, 2015
Later in the game, it Pero Antic's turn to get in on the fun. Late in the third quarter, Pero pump fakes his way past David West and finishes a two-hand jam much to the delight of the Hawks' bench.
During the previous timeout, the Hawks had shown a video tribute to Dominique Wilkins and Pero joked after the game that it had inspired him.
"After the Dominique Wilkins video, I had to dunk," Antic said. "Something was wrong today. We don't dunk a lot, so when we can we go 100 percent."