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Hawks eager to prove they deserve postseason spotlight



After an impressive 114-96 win in Brooklyn, fending off Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, fourth year power-forward John Collins had a message for those taking the Hawks lightly:

“I feel like we proved that we are real contenders in the East. ... We are not a joke.”

Interim coach Nate McMillan took over for Lloyd Pierce, the Hawks went from the worst fourth-quarter team in the league to the best and they’ve gone 26-11 since (40-31 overall), only recently getting healthier. They’ve clinched a Top 6 playoff spot, successfully avoiding the play-in tournament, catapulting from No. 11 in the East to No. 4 (as of Friday). The turnaround has been dramatic.

In light of that, many of the Hawks don’t feel that the team has gotten the national attention it deserves, or the credit for how much the group has improved. With the franchise’s first playoffs since the 2016 season awaiting, they’re motivated to back up Collins’ original point, having undergone this transformation — they’re better than people think they are.

For many of the young Hawks players, including Collins, the longest-tenured guy on the roster, this will mark their first trip to the playoffs. That’s the case for Year 3 players in Young and Kevin Huerter and Year 2 in De’Andre Hunter. Every player with postseason experience, including Lou Williams, Clint Capela, Solomon Hill and Danilo Gallinari, is a newer arrival.

[T]hey’re here now. And they’ve got the opportunity, whoever it comes against (both the Heat and Knicks would be a tough matchup in the first round), to prove they belong.

Jamaaliver wrote:The entire focus of our defense has to be on slowing this guy down:

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First up to reign him in?

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Matchups to watch in Round 1: Randle vs. the bigs, and Thibs' plan for Trae

There are two matchups to keep an eye on: Randle vs. Clint Capela and John Collins; and Thibodeau vs. Trae Young. Randle has been a force against the Hawks this season, scoring 40 points, 44 points and 28 points in each of their three matchups. (The Knicks won all three.) Capela and Collins could be tasked with containing him. On the other side, Thibodeau has seemed to draw up schemes to force the Hawks to try to beat them without Young's sharpshooting. Young shot 36.2% against the Knicks in the regular season, his second lowest against any team that he played at least three times.

Biggest concern along the Hawks playoff path

Playoff inexperience. Of Atlanta's top five scorers, only center Clint Capela has ever appeared in the playoffs. ESPN's Zach Lowe has told the story of running into Hawks guard Kevin Huerter in his hotel in Philadelphia during the 2019 playoffs, when Pierce brought Huerter to watch his former team and get a sense of postseason basketball. Watching from the stands is no substitute for the real thing, and playoff experience does have predictive power for team success. Atlanta's stars could struggle to adapt to defenses scheming for them in a different way than during the regular season.

shakes0 wrote:I wish I could help y'all defend the Hawks honor on the general board, but I'm one month into a 2 month general board ban so Hawks gonna need to make in a couple rounds before I can support them on the GB.

Before anyone asks, my ban was for making a timely joke about the WNBA that was not appreciated by the snowflake politically correct police who mod the general board.

DirtybirdGA wrote:Can Jamaliver represent you in Message Board court?