Today in the morning Zaza Pachulia centre forward of “Atlanta Hawks” improved his record and gained more than against “Grizzlies” on October last year (17 points, 11 rebs). Captain of Georgian National Basketball Team played 32:35 minutes against lost match with “Denver” (87:102) and gained 19 points, rebounded 10, assisted twice and covered once. As a result he was the best among other players and it worth mentioning that he has never played for so long time before.
He was not in starting main staff, but at the 7th minutes he had already 7 points and 3 rebs. Till the end he kept the temp of playing.
Fortunately, Larry Drew saw how well Pachulia was playing and did not limit his playing time. As a result he spent the most time in this season– about 33 minutes and in fact he played without any mistakes.
Finally scored 2-point kicks eight times from 9 and 3 penalty kicks from 4, he lost the ball twice and was fouled 4 times. Horford main centre forward of “Atlanta Hawks” played for 33:47 minutes and gained 7 points, 6 rebounded and assisted 6 times. Josh Smith – 13 points, 9 rebounds.
In spite of good start the last match was unsuccessful for “Atlanta Hawks”.
“Atlanta Hawks” has 29 victories but it does no reflect on their tournament condition, they are on the third place in South-East division and keeps the fifth place in whole Eastern Conference.
“Boston”, “Chicago”, “Miami” and “Orlando” are ahead “Atlanta Hawks” and playing in play-off is guaranteed of them. Supposedly “Atlanta Hawks” will get right of competing in play-off in the nearest matches. On Saturday they play against “Miami”, which is leader of Southeast Division with 46 victories.
Atlanta – Denver 87:102 (20:17, 22:29, 21:26, 24:30)
Atlanta:Smith(13 p. 9 r.), Johnson (12 p.), Hinrich (9 p), Horford (7 p6 r.) Teague (4 p.); Pachulia(19 p. 10 r.), Crawford (13 p.), Williams (10 p.), Wilkins.
Denver: Hillario(20 p. 7 r. 4 c.), Afflalo (15 p.), Chandler (14 p. 10 r.), Martin (12 p. 7 r.), Lawson (9 p. 10 r.); Smith (15 p.), Harrington (9 p.), Felton (8 p. 6 a.), Forbes, Andersen, Kosta, Mozgov.
