What makes the Hawks so impossible to stop?

Ray Glier | Special for USA TODAY Sports

ATLANTA -- The Atlanta Hawks went out Friday night and created more suspicion about how they play the game. In rowdy Philips Arena, they were preposterous three-point shooters against Golden State, which had to make the Warriors' Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, downright jealous. The Hawks didn't give the nets a break banging in 15 of 27 3-point shots (55.6) in a 124-116 victory.

That's the point, the NBA snobs insist. No honest-to-goodness NBA championship contender could possibly sustain that can kind of fluky, carnival barrage of threes in a postseason run. Basketball is a game of Trees, not threes. Big people, physical people win in June, not circus acts.

They're right, of course. The Hawks will not win an NBA championship on a daily bread of threes; they have something else more clever in mind and the Warriors got a mouthful of it. The rest of the NBA better pay attention because the Hawks, the best team in the Eastern Conference (42-9), just beat the Warriors, the best team in the Western Conference (39-9), in a showdown and did it with something more than just threes.

When Golden State tried to fit a lineup on the floor to solve the Hawks offense of threes, Atlanta set screens, rolled to the basket, popped out, and greeted all the switches the Warriors made on defense with a big smile. Because suddenly there was Paul Millsap, 6-foot-8 and a bulky 246 pounds, looking down on a guard and barreling to the basket. There was 6-10 Al Horford running at the rim with a slower big man trying to keep up.

Golden State coach Steve Kerr had to go to a smaller lineup when his 7-footer Andrew Bogut came face-to-face with 6-foot-1 guard Dennis Schroder late in the third quarter. Instinctively, the Hawks shifted the floor away from Schroder to give him room to bamboozle Bogut and the little guy faked a drive, stopped, and popped in a floating 11-footer. When Bogut left the game and the lane was free, the path was made easier for Millsap to abuse and Horford to rim run.

When the Hawks get a mismatch, they recognize it instantly, and lock in on it. They do not take panicked looks at the shot clock and they sure don't pass up the chance to exploit the mismatch. The Hawks' egos, never, ever, get in the way ('hey, it's my turn to shoot').

It is a basketball savvy and maturity to behold, and a pretty good reason why coach Mike Budenholzer should be, so far, the NBA Coach of the Year.

Sure, the Hawks made all those threes Friday night, but they also made 33 of 37 free throws when the Warriors had to foul when caught in a mismatch. The three-pointers were enthralling and brought the sellout crowd of 19,225 out of their seats, but the real masterpiece were the possessions where the Hawks had a big on a small or a small on a big and got points out of it.

"We have Paul who can pick and pop and pick and roll and do so many things," forward Mike Scott said when asked if it is a 'win' when teams go small. "If teams start switching it is really in our favor to get a guard against him and let him go to work. He's a great passer and it opens the floor."

Here is the real irony in it. When the Hawks get one of those mismatches, it looks like just a good old-fashioned NBA 'iso'. They don't look like a one-trick pony of long-range shooters.

"It's something we work on every single day, our bigs guarding our smalls, and our smalls guarding our bigs," Scott said. "We take them off the dribble with Jeff (Teague) and Dennis, or swing it to Paul or Al and let them work against smaller player."

David Lee, the veteran forward for the Warriors, understands the dilemma and the problem finding a remedy.

"They make you make some decisions," Lee said. "The thought is, do you stay big and make them guard you as a bigger team, or go small and play the kind of ball they are playing? They are very spread out and it makes you make decisions on how you want to play screen and rolls and how you want to lock and trail."

Who's better? Warriors or Hawks USA TODAY Sports' Jeff Zillgitt and Sam Amick debate about which team is more likely to compete for an NBA title.

The Hawks have nine three-point shooters. When do you switch, and on whom? You have to trail Kyle Korver the tightest because he gets his three loaded and gone the fastest and is the most accurate. But what about the lefty Kent Bazemore, the former Warrior, showing up in the corner? The Hawks were scuffling in the first half when he came off the bench, found a comfortable spot in the corner opposite the bench, and splashed his threes. What about Scott jumping off the bench and sinking 5 of 7 threes?

Curry, meanwhile, did not get untracked until he went to the foul line for three free shots with 8:53 to play in the third. He smoothed out his stroke with that clock-stopped shooting practice and had 15 points in the quarter to keep his side in the game. He finished with 26 while Thompson had 29, but they could not keep up with the Hawks who had six in double figures.

The Warriors could not dwell on the loss to the Hawks. They are in a stretch of four road games in six days and 10 road games in their next 11 contests. Kerr shrugged off a suggestion this was a preview of games to be played in June in the finals.

The fans of the NBA want their monarchs, like LeBron and Durant and Carmelo, and they are being forced to accept the Hawks, who do not have an All-Star starter. The deep end of the Atlanta bench had just out-gunned the fastest guns in the west, but the Hawks will continue to be a raging fire only on the back burner because the NBA fan is busy marveling over the new-found chemistry of the Cavs or the battle royales in the west.

Korver called his team "fresh", but he is not hip enough to have meant "cool", which is what fresh means on the street these days. He meant 'fresh' as far as being a new look. The Hawks are shiny different, but they can also be a physical bully that will mash you in a mismatch.