In addition to those duties though, Pelton has begun to carve a niche for himself in the John Hollinger-esque statistical analysis world, writing for Basketball Prospectus and, recently, SI.com. Kevin is a great guy and a talented writer, and he has turned his attention to the Hawks after last night's throttling of the Denver Nuggets. Specifically, he takes a look at what has caused the team's turnaround from the previous few seasons and reaches a conclusion I'm sure we'll all agree with - it's all about three-point shooting.

It's a great article, and I suggest reading the whole thing, but here is a small snippet:

"With the notable exception of Smith, the other Hawks starters have improved virtually across the board. I suspect we are seeing the benefit of a well-spaced floor and the need for defenses to respect four of the five players beyond the arc. The improvement in turnover rates is especially striking, while Bibby is hitting a career-high percentage of his two-point shots and Williams too has made major strides inside the three-point line as well as outside it. Johnson's two-point improvement is not actually as impressive as it looks; he hit 50.4 percent of his twos in 2006-07 before suffering through a fluky 2007-08 campaign."