Post-game, Mark Daigneault called out the defensive lapses, and that is probably the takeaway from this one. The short-handed Hawks had no business putting 74 first-half points and 129 total against the league's best defense.
Like I said, a big part of it was Atlanta hitting some shots that, to repeat myself, had no business going in, but the havoc-inducing defense we're used to just wasn't there for long enough stretches to put the Hawks away. In the second half, they dialed in to start the third quarter, and it looked like we'd have a repeat of the win against the 76ers, but the defensive intensity declined, and the Hawks got right back into it.