After three quarters, the Hawks lead 91-75. Zaza Pachulia has been the real star so far, going for 17 and 9 (leading all scorers and rebounders) and he just added to the excitement by completely stuffing Hasheem Thabeet to end the third quarter, his second block of the night. There’s a great deal of encouraging sights from this game, and in the box score, with Marvin posting 15 and 7 while going 5-6 shooting.
It’s important, however, to keep in mind that the Hawks are dominating Memphis’ front line while Zach Randolph (back contusion) and Marc Gasol are out. Basically, the back-up front line of Memphis just isn’t very good-Thabeet just can’t bang on the inside with most half-decent bigs. Josh Powell has looked good against the competition he’s had to face, which is to say something.
For the Hawks, what’s very discouraging is to see Josh Smith taking all but one of his eight shot attempts from outside 16 feet (the one exception was an easy dunk). The man needs to attempt to drive some more when he sees loads of open space, rather than pulling up. That’s exactly the opposite ratio of shot distributions we’d like to see from him this year.