The Atlanta Hawks kick off their highly-anticipated 2020-2021 season on Friday night; here’s the first half of their schedule at a glance.
Atlanta Hawks fans should be pretty excited to watch their new-look team take the floor for the first time this Friday evening in their first preseason game versus the Orlando Magic. The Hawks are playoff-berth hopeful in this shortened 72-game season where there will be a play-in tournament for the teams that finish seventh and below in each conference.
While only the first half of the NBA schedule has been released, let’s take a look at some of the matchups to circle in the early going of this NBA season.
Preseason
A shortened NBA offseason will see the preseason start on Friday, December 11th, exactly two months after the Los Angeles Lakers won the 2020 championship. With that being the case, teams will only have four preseason games to prepare for the regular season.
The Atlanta Hawks will take on the Orlando Magic twice this weekend, once on Friday evening and then again on Sunday, December 13th at 5:00 pm. Both will be home matchups for the Hawks, taking place in State Farm Arena. The Magic finished in the eighth seed last year with a 33-30 record and will be looking to make the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
These two games will be ones to watch for the simple fact that if the Hawks want to get to the playoffs this year, the Orlando Magic will likely be in their way. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the 7th through 10th will compete in a play-in tournament and we can expect both the Hawks and Magic to be fighting for a slot.
The Atlanta Hawks will also face the Memphis Grizzlies in two matchups, both in Memphis. The Ja Morant led squad will be looking to build off of the momentum they captured last year after being invited to the NBA bubble and falling just short of a playoff berth to a Damian Lillard led Portland Blazers squad.
Regular Season
The Atlanta Hawks will kick off the regular season on the road against the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday, December 23rd before the official NBA Opening Night five days later.
They’ll get tested early with two games against the Brooklyn Nets who will have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving back and healthy, and that could possibly feature James Harden. We’ll keep our eyes open as trade rumors swirl this week.
Atlanta will have a tough stretch in mid-January in which they face the Philadelphia 76ers, the Chris Paul-featured Phoenix Suns, the Utah Jazz, and the Portland Trailblazers all within a span of six days.
The NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers will come to town on Monday, February 1st with a new roster of their own featuring Dennis Schroeder, Wesley Matthews, and Marc Gasol. That game kicks off another tough stretch for the Hawks. They’ll play seven games in a row versus playoff teams including the Toronto Raptors and the Dallas Mavericks twice.
The Atlanta Hawks will also face the contending Boston Celtics three times toward the end of February and the Miami Heat twice. The Heat are also new on James Harden’s list of potential landing spots so we’ll see if the Hawks have yet another superstar to worry about in the East.