Saturday NBA Roundup: Eastern Conference Middle Class Is Officially Legit

March 26th, 2016 by Josh Martin Leave a reply »

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors have been the clear class of the East thus far, but both could be susceptible to playoff upsets at the hands of the conference's second tier.

On Saturday, the Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics and Charlotte Hornets—the Eastern Conference's third, fourth and sixth seeds, respectively—made hay against lesser competition from that side of the bracket.

Of those three, the Hawks had the toughest draw of the night, though you wouldn't know it from the final score. They went into the Motor City suburbs and throttled the Detroit Pistons, 112-95, in a game they led from wire to wire.

Atlanta played prototypical Hawks basketball on both ends at the Palace of Auburn Hills. On offense, eight Hawks finished in double figures, led by Paul Millsap's 23 points and facilitated by Jeff Teague's 12 assists. All told, Atlanta logged helpers on 34 of its 43 makes—not including the team's 11 secondary assists and two dimes leading to free throws, per NBA.com.

On the other end, the Hawks, who've played the league's stingiest defense of the calendar year, held the Pistons to 38 ...

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