Before Thursday’s game even tipped off, it was a difficult recipe for the Atlanta Hawks. In addition to a talent advantage for the home team in the Denver Nuggets, Lloyd Pierce and company entered this contest without Taurean Prince and Dewayne Dedmon (in addition to John Collins and Justin Anderson), deploying a short-handed group against a superior team. Though it didn’t take 48 minutes to become academic, the Hawks fell flat in a big way, losing by a final score of 138-93.
At the outset, nothing went well for the visiting team, as the Nuggets took a commanding 13-0 (yes, 13-0) lead out of the gate.