TALK OF THE TOWN: Hawks' technical fouls — and wins

Trae Young appears to be mocking the ref — with, remarkably, no technical foul called. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Young received his well-deserved 13th tech of the season by encouraging the crowd to also express their displeasure. All a bit irrelevant as the Hawks easily defeated the hapless Philadelphia 76ers 132 to 119 in Atlanta Sunday evening. On Saturday night the Hawks took care of that other Philly team, the former Philadelphia, now Golden State, Warriors, 124 to 115.

Young led the team with 28 points and 12 assists. He is also four shy of the season's tech foul leader Anthony Edwards at 17. In his seventh season, Young currently has 83. It’s a long way to catch up with Karl Malone's NBA career high of 332 techs. Sixteen (16) is the magic number to receive a one-game suspension. But, while Young seemingly can't resist jabbing at the refs, he also enjoyed, once again, spending time at the free-throw line converting 10 of 11.

The highlight for the Sixers was when they tied the Hawks at 14 at 5:56 in the first quarter. Thereafter, the Hawks never trailed. The outcome was hardly in doubt when Atlanta’s biggest lead stretched to 27-points. Philly is tanking, undoubtedly moving on to Phase 2 of "the Process" since Process Part I, featuring injury-prone Joel Embiid and Ben "I don t want to shoot" Simmons, proved so successful.

Hawks shot 55.2 percent for the night, including a better than average 45.9 percent (17 x 37) from beyond the three-point arc; Zaccharie Risacher with 22 points, off the bench Georges Niang with 20. Theft-King Dyson Daniels picked up 5 more steals. now leading the league with 197.

Hawks are off on a three game road trip before returning home to face Portland Tuesday, April 1.