Atlanta Hawks: 3 keys to a Game 2 victory and 2-0 lead in the ECF

1-0 has become par for the course for the Atlanta Hawks. They did it in the first round in Madison Square Garden. It happened again in Philadelphia, another very tough place to play. And now, they’ve taken Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals from the Bucks in Milwaukee. The wildest part of it all is it hasn’t felt like the “impossible” was happening in any of them.

It’s on to Game 2 now, however, and the Hawks will need to play even better if they want to take a commanding 2-0 lead in this series.

They got a historical game from Trae Young and still only beat the Bucks by three. Now, no one is expecting a blowout victory at this stage of the postseason. But to think the Hawks didn’t come close to playing their best ball and still walked away victorious.

Imagine if they locked in and played a complete game.

It was basically a three-headed monster between Young, John Collins, and Kevin Huerter as it’s been since De’Andre Hunter went down.

What do the Atlanta Hawks need to do to get the win in Game 2 of the ECF?

They shot better from the free-throw line in this one, hitting 87.5 percent. But they shot just 25 percent from three-point range as their perimeter shooting woes continued. It just so happens that Atlanta is 11th in three-point efficiency this postseason and the Bucks are the only team worse off to be still alive.

Milwaukee even got a good game from Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo went 6-for-8 at the line in addition to the Hawks on shooting issues early on.

It’s becoming more evident that the Hawks can win this series but they have some work to do to make that happen. It starts with Game 2 and what they can do to go back to Atlanta in commanding control of this series.

Let’s see what they’ll need to do to make that happen.