Here come the Spurs: After dismantling the Hawks, San Antonio looks ready to roll (Ball Don’t Lie)

After an at-times unimpressive start to the season that cast doubt on their chances of defending the NBA championship they won last summer, the San Antonio Spurs have looked to be rounding into form of late, shaking off early struggles as Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard return to health to join the stalwart Tim Duncan for the postseason push. And yet, some skepticism has surrounded the Spurs' rise. Yes, San Antonio has racked up victories over the past couple of months, but more than a few have come against lower-tier competition within the friendly confines of the AT&T Centerl they've still dropped a couple of games to stiff opposition at home. Moreover, they scuffled during the post-All-Star portion of their annual Rodeo Road Trip , dropping four straight to the Los Angeles Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers. Then there was whatever the Spurs coughed up against the New York Knicks on St. Patrick's Day. The profile was there — 19-9 since Leonard's return to the lineup on Jan. 16, the league's fifth-best record during that span, with top-10 marks in both points scored and allowed per possession — but the results have felt less impressive than the stats. No sane person would write off the Spurs, but you'd be more likely to consider them a contender if they'd just take care of business against a quality opponent, especially on the road. And then: Sunday. The Spurs whipped the Atlanta Hawks, turning Philips Arena into their own personal Highlight Factory in a 114-95 beatdown . Even without injured second-unit captain Manu Ginobili, Gregg Popovich's club looked as good as it has since laying waste to the Miami Heat last June. San Antonio raced out to a 26-6 lead eight minutes into the game, generating and canning clean look after clean look en route to an 11-for-14 start from the field, including 10 straight makes in a 5 1/2-minute span. The Spurs' defense came ready to dictate the terms of engagement early, with Duncan and Tiago Splitter locking down the paint and San Antonio's wings re-routing Hawks cutters as they worked off the ball in Atlanta head coach (and ex-longtime San Antonio assistant) Mike Budenholzer's free-flowing, motion-heavy offense. The result: a dismal 3-for-10 start from the floor for Atlanta, and a season-low 13 points in the first quarter; When the Hawks came to life in the second quarter, sparked by All-Star forward Paul Millsap and reserve point guard Dennis Schröder, San Antonio continually answered right back, with Splitter (nine points and four rebounds in 8 1/2 minutes of second-quarter work) and Marco Belinelli (all 13 of his points in the frame) keeping the Hawks at bay, extending the Spurs' lead to 18 at intermission. The signature half-court ball movement that propelled the Spurs to last year's title was on full display on Sunday: That ball movement today 🙌 https://t.co/8B3pPQDC5K — San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) March 22, 2015 San Antonio logged 360 passes in Sunday's game, with 30 assists and 11 secondary or "hockey" assists on 46 made field goals, all well above their already top-five full-season averages . The Spurs' interior passing, in particular, was sensational. Duncan, Splitter and Boris Diaw had the high-low game working all day, keeping the Hawks' defenders off-balance and producing repeated good looks near the basket, especially for Splitter, who scored a season-high 23 points on 10-for-14 shooting to go with eight rebounds and two assists in 27 minutes. Speaking of Diaw ... he looked good! Like, "17 points on 8-for-10 shooting, dominate the fourth quarter, snuff out an chance of a late comeback, create inside-out mismatches against opposing frontcourts" good. It's the kind of good we haven't seen all that often from Diaw this season, after he proved to be an indispensable part of the Spurs' title run and was paid as such this summer. But after a fairly long and undistinguished winter hibernation, it's the kind of good we've now seen from Diaw twice in the last three games , He's shooting 53 percent from the floor and 14-for-15 at the foul line in March with a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. If this is a sign of an uptick to come for Diaw, the Spurs' attack could become even more varied and dangerous in a hurry. And speaking of varied and dangerous ... my word, Kawhi: Twenty points on 8-for-14 shooting, 10 rebounds, seven assists and four steals in 32 minutes, and even that doesn't feel like it tells the story. Leonard grabbed the game by the scruff of its neck early, outscoring the Hawks 10-6 by himself over the first eight minutes before moving on to impose his will on both ends even without getting his own: Leonard and Danny Green (15 points, seven rebounds, three assists) made life miserable on Atlanta's perimeter players, helping hold the All-Star backcourt of Jeff Teague and the returning (and masked ) Kyle Korver to 14 points on 12 shots with 10 turnovers. Leonard has now scored more than 20 points eight times in the last dozen games while also averaging 7.3 rebounds, four combined blocks and steals, and 2.6 assists in 33.9 minutes per contest, shooting 53.2 percent from the floor and 38.2 percent from 3-point land. Related: San Antonio's won 10 of 12. Atlanta never led, never got closer than 12 points after the 6:37 mark of the first quarter, and saw the deficit balloon to 25 early in the third. At that point, Budenholzer had seen enough, getting himself run by referee Joey Crawford after arguing for foul calls following a pair of physical possessions resulting in Hawks misses. It was just as well; we're guessing Coach Bud wouldn't have been too keen to sit there and watch his former mates continue dismantling his squad, sending the Hawks to a season-high third-straight loss and dropping them (well, "dropping" them) to 53-17 on the season. From Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution : In losses to the Warriors, Thunder and Spurs, the Hawks allowed those opponents an average of 117 points per game on 53.2 percent shooting. Defense has been the catalyst of the Hawks' success this record-breaking season. "I think the last three games, the way teams have been able to get free, get shots, get percentages is a concern," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. "It's a lot of little things. It starts with better individual defense. But I would probably be more concerned if we hadn't shown an ability to do it a lot of the season. We need to draw on that. We need to know how important it is first to be good defensively and kind of remind us how we are good defensively and get back to doing that." For his part, Budenholzer's old boss declined to give his crew too much credit for a blowout victory over a team coming off a six-game West Coast swing, according to Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News : "I think we caught a break, to be very honest," Popovich said. "Everybody knows the first game home after a road trip is always a very difficult game. And when you've been on the road (11) days as they were, it usually ends up not being a great game. "With Kyle coming back and not having rhythm, they have to get used to him again. In addition to that, we had a really good night, and they had a poor night. It happens to all of us. "It's just another game, and we move on." And yet, the trappings of the performance — a dominating, never-in-doubt road win over the best team in the East — help make the Spurs' recent surge seem somehow more real. Watching San Antonio's starters demolish Atlanta's — Duncan-Splitter-Green-Leonard-Parker outscored Atlanta by 22 points in 17 minutes of floor time on Sunday — serves to legitimize the Spurs' outsized numbers since reintroducing Splitter back into the starting five: Since Splitter was put back in the lineup (2/27), Spurs' starters have outscored opponents by 41 points per 100 poss: http://t.co/dJwtS1LwVn — John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) March 23, 2015 Seeing Leonard dominate on both ends lends credence to the idea that, when he and Parker are healthy, the Spurs are an entirely different animal. Watching Belinelli and Diaw get loose reminds you that this bench has enough playmaking and scoring to overwhelm opposing second units, especially if Ginobili and the still-not-quite-there Patty Mills can get right by the playoffs. Seeing the Spurs tic-tac-toe their way through the league's No. 9 defense, a club pitched as a time-shifted spin-off of a long-running success, served as a reminder that while San Antonio's style has spawned many imitators, there's nothing quite like the original. And watching the ever-dour Duncan dance on the bench after dropping seven dimes, corralling seven boards and blocking four shots ... ... well, no, we don't really know what to do with that. It feels like a sign, though. With just under a month remaining in the 2014-15 regular season, the Spurs — now sitting sixth at 44-25, a scant two games behind the Houston Rockets for the West's No. 3 seed — seem to feel pretty good about themselves. Look on their works, ye mighty, and despair. - - - - - - - Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YourManDevine Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL , "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.

Here come the Spurs: After dismantling the Hawks, San Antonio looks ready to roll (Ball Don’t Lie)

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