Sports Illustrated writer Zach Lowe had some rather enlightening thoughts to share on the Hawks in his column,  The Point Forward, yesterday:

“The Hawks are the Hawks — boring, predictable, effective, somehow making do with Vladimir Radmanovic, Ivan Johnson and (especially) a spry Zaza Pachulia playing Al Horford’s minutes. No one knows what to make of this team, though it will be intriguing if Marvin Williams keeps playing like he is, Jeff Teague finds his game consistently and Horford returns. But a contender? Eh.”

Honestly, not a bad assessment, imho. Taking a step back at this quarter-mark in the season, the Hawks are doing slightly better than expected (13-5, first place in the Southeast Division), although their schedule hasn’t been the most challenging thus far.

The impressive part is that they’ve done so despite major injuries to Al Horford and Kirk Hinrich, not to mention smaller nagging injuries to Marvin Williams and Tracy McGrady. But different players have stepped up at different times, the most recent of which was Joe Johnson’s 28-point performance in last night’s 97-92 victory over the Bucks.