MILWAUKEE (AP) \u2014 Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 23 points and the Atlanta Hawks defeated the slumping Milwaukee Bucks 131-113 on Wednesday night to win their fifth straight game and move above .500 for the first time since December.<\/p>\n
Atlanta (32-31) was 15-12 after a Dec. 14 victory over Philadelphia, but the Hawks lost their next seven games and hadn\u2019t owned a winning record since.<\/p>\n
Onyeka Okongwu had 21 points and Jalen Johnson added 20 points and nine assists as the Hawks erased an early 16-point deficit. CJ McCollum scored 18 points, while Dyson Daniels had 14 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
The Hawks outscored the Bucks 65-42 in the second half.<\/p>\n
Atlanta didn\u2019t have Jonathan Kuminga available due to inflammation in his left knee, while Milwaukee was missing Kevin Porter Jr. because of swelling in his right knee.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee (26-35) fell five games behind Atlanta and Charlotte, who are tied for ninth in the Eastern Conference standings. The Bucks have lost their last four games by a combined 97 points.<\/p>\n
Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 24 points for the Bucks in his second game since returning from a right calf strain that caused him to miss five weeks. He received a technical foul for throwing the ball against the stanchion in frustration after a basket by Daniels extended Atlanta’s lead to 121-103 with 4:20 left.<\/p>\n
Ryan Rollins had 13 points and 12 assists for the Bucks. Kyle Kuzma scored 16 two nights after spending an entire 108-81 loss to the Boston Celtics on the bench.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee led 71-66 after a first half in which each team shot at least 60% from the floor. But the Bucks then went ice cold, scoring just two points in the first 5:56 of the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Atlanta pulled ahead for good by scoring the first 10 points of the third.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Hawks: Host the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Bucks: Host the Utah Jazz on Saturday.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n
Steve Megargee, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE (AP) \u2014 Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 23 points and the Atlanta Hawks defeated the slumping Milwaukee Bucks 131-113…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-515549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}