Wednesday night’s 83-80 win by the Atlanta Hawks over the Chicago Bulls might be the best game Atlanta has played all year. Despite falling down by a 14-0 football score margin in the first quarter, the Hawks started chipping away after halftime, led by Al Horford’s career-high 31 points plus 16 rebounds.
Multiple Hawks, including Joe Johnson, said Horford decided the Hawks were going to win the game despite trailing by 17 at the half and being unable to do anything on defense.
The D arrived in the second half, as did the scoring. There’s no better moment to demonstrate this then Horford’s connection with Johnson for what might’ve turned out to be the winning play:
Without that steal, the Bulls only need to score once from the field to turn a 19-point comeback into nothing more than a nice effort. But tacking on two more points meant Chicago needed to shoot from deep and the Hawks could organize their defense accordingly.