The Hawks are a really athletic team and when they get out and run, it's very hard to stop them. That athleticism also allows them to get back on transition as well and prevent fastbreaks on the other end. Coming home from the game, I heard the radio broadcast mention that after the 3rd quarter, the Hawks led 18 to 4 in Fastbreak points, and I believe it. It ended up being 21 to 15 by the end, but the damage had already been done.

John Salmons led the bench in scoring with 14 points, and he also had 4 assists, 2 steals and a block. He's doing a really good job of running the second unit, playing defense, and simply shooting the ball lately. This is the John Salmons that most of us have been waiting to see all year. The move from the starting lineup to the bench seems to have reinvigorated John and I hope to see consistency like this from now on.

The game really broke down for Sacramento with about 4 minutes remaining in the third quarter. Up until that point the Kings had kept the game pretty even. Then with 4:05 left, Jeff Teague hit a spot-up three point shot to give Atlanta the 71-68 lead. On the opposite end, Cousins hit a jumper, but Teague ran up the floor fast and answered back with a huge slam dunk that seemed to be a big energy boost to the Hawks as they stepped it up from that point on.

Poor help-side rotations played a big part in the loss tonight as well. There were several instances when the Kings came to double someone (usually Josh Smith or Joe Johnson) but they would leave a good shooter open and the Hawks made them pay.

The Kings also shot way too many threes for my liking. 29 attempts from downtown for Sacramento, and they hit just 10 of them. Marcus Thornton shot 7, hitting just 2, Tyreke Evans and Donté Greene combined to miss all five of their own. There were several possessions where it seems like the Kings simply settled for the three pointer when they could have run a play for a higher percentage shot. The ones I really don't like are the ones early in the shot clock when it's either you make it or get nothing, since there's little chance of an offensive rebound. Cisco's a big culprit in the shooting threes early in the shot clock department, particularly when the Kings don't need them and simply need to score.

Sacramento once again had a poor performance on the boards, getting outrebounded by the Hawks 45-36. Part of that is because Atlanta shot 51.2% to Sacramento's 46.3%, but the Hawks also managed 11 offensive rebounds to just 9 for the Kings. Right now the Kings only good rebounder is DeMarcus Cousins, and when he's off the floor, that's something that really hurts the Kings. It might be something to look into come deadline time this Thursday because it's been a problem all year.

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