Some quick, random stuff from tonight's 98-92 loss at Atlanta:
* Al Jefferson was back in the fourth quarter tonight after sitting all but one of the final 15 minutes in Tuesday's victory at Miami while Darko Milicic played on (and after watching the final four minutes Sunday against Oklahoma City).
He played all but 93 seconds in a fourth quarter when the Wolves trimmed a 16-point, second-quarter deficit to a basket early in the fourth but couldn't overtake a longer, deeper, more athletic Hawks team that shows what you can be when you rebuild for, oh, seven years.
Afterward, Kurt Rambis praised Jefferson's second-half defense one night after he said Milicic played through the fourth quarter because he cares about getting defensive stops and moves the ball on offense.
This is in tonight's game story but I'll add it here as well:
I asked Al about what it was like for him to sit and watch Tuesday.
He said, "It was real good because we won. When you got a group out there playing well, it'd be selfish of me to be mad because I'm on the bench. We won the game. I was happy. I was into the game. I was excited the way the guys were playing, and we came out with the victory."
Tonight was Al's third consecutive 10-point game, which you can probably attribute partly to assimiliating Darko into the lineup and to the Hawks' double-teaming defense. Seemed like every time Al touched the ball, Josh Smith was coming over to help out, too.
