Atlanta Hawks: Month-By-Month Review of 2018-19 Season

March

Record: 7-8

Best Win: v. Philadelphia

Worst Loss: v. Portland

Not only did March bring Atlanta the most wins, it also brought some of the team’s most memorable moments in recent Atlanta Hawks history.

It began with one of the best games of the entire NBA calendar, the 4 overtime thriller against Chicago that had a little of everything. Trae had 49 points and 16 assists, and both teams traded big time shots.

Things ended just as big, with the Hawks beating two of the East’s top 3 teams in the final 8 days, and both by Young buzzer-beaters.

First, the Atlanta Hawks beat the Sixers by two. We’ll get to the ending in the bit, but if you dig deep through the Hawks’ season, you’ll notice they played a handful of talented teams close, but failed to keep a lead they built.

This time, and the previous (a win over the Jazz) broke that mold, and showed the Hawks can compete with even the most talented teams for 48 minutes. They ended up winning by two, with Trae Young using his speed to blast by Jimmy Butler for the game-winning floater.

https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1109640474095222784

It was just a bit over a week later when he was back at it, shaking off a rough game overall to bury the Bucks in OT.

While led by Trae, the Hawks as a team were great on their own right. They scored nearly 120 points per game, only behind the upstart Clips. They did so by running right at their opponents – as fast as they could.

In March Atlanta shot 98.5 field goals per game, the next closest was the Pelicans with 95.6. They were second in the league in pace.

There shooting percentages weren’t as sharp as previous months, but their philosophy of quantity over quality shots proved to be fairly effective. They were also able to finally wrangle in their turnover problem, “improving” to 14.1 a game, still near the bottom of the league, but a whole lot better than the 19.1 in January.