Atlanta Hawks: Previewing First Game of Regular Season vs. Pistons
By Chris Guest
The Atlanta Hawks will duke it out with the Detroit Pistons on Thursday night in the team’s first regular season. Read on for a preview of the match-up.
At long last, the Atlanta Hawks regular season begins. All of the hype and histrionic squabbling about how the team will play this season will be replaced with cold, hard data following the first game of the year.
Though it takes at least 15 games before any real takeaways can be made about a team, but that doesn’t mean we can’t overreact immediately to any and all action from the game against the Pistons.
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A few notable pieces of news have crossed the transom ahead of this game. First up, All-Star Blake Griffin will miss this game against the Atlanta Hawks as he recovers from hamstring and knee injuries from the offseason. Griffin will be out until at least November.
Beyond that, on the Hawks side, rookie Cam Reddish will actually start in the team’s backcourt alongside Trae Young in place of the recuperating Kevin Huerter. Red Velvet will come off the bench and be limited to only 15 minutes of playing time in the season opener, per Kevin Chouinard of NBA.com.
Looking back to last season, the Hawks ended with a record of 1-2 against the Pistons, with their lone win coming on December 23 with their leading scorer being the ageless wonder Vince Carter. This was not your typical modern NBA game as the Hawks bested Detroit by a final margin of 98 to 95.
This game is sure to be widely enjoyed by Hawks fans as it will be the first time this rendition of the team will actually play a meaningful game with (nearly) their full complement of players.
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With Griffin out for Detroit, expect plenty of Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond – both of whom always tend to “get up” to play against the Hawks for whatever reason. Let’s go Hawks!