Atlanta 130, Detroit 129: Hawks Beat Pistons in Overtime Thriller

The Hawks are now the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference.

Welcome to Sports Renaissance Man, a daily sports newsletter for sports fans who would like to know a little more about a lot.

If you enjoy what you read today in the Atlanta Hawks section, consider becoming a subscriber below. You can select which sections of the newsletter you’d like to get emails from here.

The Atlanta Hawks continued their winning ways in Detroit on Wednesday night. The Detroit Pistons were without their star guard, Cade Cunningham, but the No. 1 seed in the East still gave Atlanta head basketball coach Quin Snyder’s team all it could handle.

With the victory, the Hawks would be the five-seed in the NBA Playoffs and would face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, rather than either the New York Knicks or Boston Celtics, who are both battling it out for the two-seed down the stretch of the 2025-26 NBA regular season.

The Hawks, who have now won fourteen of their last fifteen basketball games, made a statement on the road last night in their overtime victory over the best team in the East, a team they’d lost to in all three of their previous meetings this season.

Let’s dive into my three takeaways from last night’s victory.

Atlanta’s Backcourt Was Everything Last Night

Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 14 points in the first quarter. Both teams were on fire from everywhere on the floor to start the ball game. With around six minutes to go in the opening frame, the Hawks were shooting over 80 percent from the floor. It looked as though it was going to be another big scoring night for the NAW, but he only scored seven more points, including overtime, the rest of the game.

It was the Hawks’ other backcourt starter, the veteran McCollum, who carried Atlanta to victory last night. He, like Alexander-Walker, started the game hot. McCollum connected on his first three attempts from deep. When McCollum and Alexander-Walker are rolling, particularly from deep, the Hawks are a really tough team to deal with, particularly because of how consistently good Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels are around them, with both being triple-digit threats every night out.

But it was McCollum, late in the fourth quarter, and then in overtime, making one big shot after another. In the fourth quarter in particular, McCollum was hitting shots in a variety of ways. He was drilling shots from deep, sometimes on one foot with the shot clock winding down, hitting huge and-1 opportunities, and even some in the mid-range. The longtime NBA veteran is a delight to watch when he’s playing like he did last night in Detroit, and he was the biggest reason the Hawks beat the Pistons for the first time this season.

What The Heck Happened In The Third Quarter

The Hawks had a 92.7 percent chance of winning this basketball game with 52.9 seconds remaining in the second quarter when Atlanta led 69-50, per ESPN. The Hawks took an eighteen-point lead into halftime. It looked as though there was going to be a lot of garbage-time minutes in the fourth quarter, given where things were headed.

Then the second half happened. The Pistons started the third quarter on a 16-0 run, and in less than half a quarter, the Hawks’ nearly 20-point lead had completely evaporated. They trailed at points in the third quarter. It was a jarring turn of events and a testament to J.B. Bickerstaff and his team for how they rallied at home after getting blown out in the first half.

It was another veteran, not McCollum, who came up big for the Hawks in the third quarter, though – Gabe Vincent. He hit two huge threes in the third quarter and scored all of his points in this brutal frame for Atlanta. Without his jolt off the bench, that also included two steals, Atlanta might not have won this game. (Alexander-Walker also hit a huge pull-up three in transition late in the third quarter that felt huge at the time, too.)

Dyson Daniels And Jalen Johnson Were Great, Too

Johnson tied McCollum in most points scored for the Hawks last night at 27. However, it’s easy to recount all of the latter’s makes, while Johnson is so good and so efficient that he can coast to 27. He was two rebounds shy of another triple-double and played winning basketball all night long. He passed the ball, drew a lot of fouls, converted at the line, and continued to be the do-it-all star for Atlanta. But on nights where McCollum is hitting some of the shots he did, particularly late in the game, Johnson’s consistently elite play can be overlooked.

For Daniels, who continues to be the best watch for Atlanta, does so many things that impact winning, too. He nearly finished with ten offensive rebounds alone and finished with 13. He added two steals, assisted on two threes for the Hawks, and nearly had a triple-double when he took zero free throws and made zero threes.

Atlanta doesn’t have enough remaining games to catch the Cavaliers, New York Knicks, or Boston Celtics, but they will face the latter in two of their next three games. The first one is Friday night in Boston.