Atlanta Hawks: 6 Takeaways from Solid Knicks Win

Huerter is Hot

Kevin Huerter also continued a string of strong performances with a pearl against the Knicks. Despite JC’s excellent game, Huerter actually led the Atlanta Hawks in on/off rating with a whopping +18.

It showed on the court too, as Huerter displays excellent effort and always seems to be in the right place on both ends of the floor. He’s a quick decision-maker, and when he makes a mistake, he knows immediately what he should have done.

Though Red Pepper didn’t put up huge box score numbers (16 points on 6 of 12 shooting), clearly Coach Lloyd Pierce trusts Huerter a great deal already, as he played a team-high 34 minutes and was tasked with helping helm the defensive turnaround that keyed the Atlanta Hawks to victory in this one.

Tanking Implications

Of course, because both the Knicks and Hawks are not particularly looking to dominate the league this season in the quest for Zion Williamson, one must look at the standings after this game from the viewpoint of draft lottery odds.

Terrific tanking team website Tankathon.com is the go-to source for such info, and a quick perusal over there shows that the Hawks still have a worse record than the Knicks, and after a surprising Bulls victory tonight, the Bulls, Cavs, Suns, Hawks and Knicks are all within 1 game of each other for best overall odds to land the #1 pick.

With the odds flattened this season in an effort to curtail tanking (good luck with that), ensuring a Top 4 (or Bottom 4) record should be the focus for the Hawks, but a strong team win like this should never be looked upon with scorn.