Despite its loss on Saturday to the New York Knicks, the Atlanta Hawks have just wrapped up their best stretch of the season. A seven-game winning streak propelled the Hawks back into the playoff picture and now with a light part of the schedule coming up, the Hawks will be thankful for some rest.
On October 28th, the Atlanta Hawks were sitting at 3-2 and on the road in Washington to face off with the Wizards. The Hawks would go on to lose eight of their next nine games to fall to 4-9 on the season.
A mini-panic ensued as the Hawks season looked to be spiraling out of control early in the season.
But they went on to right the ship, winning seven of their next eight games, including a seven-game winning streak.
The Atlanta Hawks have made it through a very rough part of their schedule
The loss against the New York Knicks would snap that seven-game winning streak, but the Hawks proved to the league, and most importantly, themselves that this is still the same team that was on the brink of the NBA Finals last season.
After an arduous stretch of the season, which included a west coast swing against some of the best teams the west has to offer, the Hawks got to come home and get reacclimated to their winning ways. Their seven-game winning streak got started with a five-game home stretch that saw the Hawks vanquish teams like the Bucks and Celtics and help the young team build the very important confidence.
The Hawks continued their winning ways after the home streak with wins against San Antonio and Memphis. It wasn’t until the Hawks came back home to face off with the Knicks that their winning streak would be snapped, partially due to a stretch of five games in seven nights.
Now, the Hawks will get a little rest. After the Saturday night loss to New York, Atlanta will take the court for the first time in four days on Wednesday, December 1st.
After that, the Hawks will only have five games over the next two weeks, with the majority of the games in Atlanta. The break in the action couldn’t have come at a better time with injuries piling up to some key players on the team.
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De’Andre Hunter went down on November 8th against the Golden State Warriors and will be out the next 8 weeks after requiring surgery. Bogdan Bogdanovic went down on Sunday with an ankle sprain and will be out 2 weeks at the minimum. Cam Reddish sprained his wrist and is likely to miss some time depending on how he responds to daily treatment.
Luckily, the Hawks are one of the deepest teams in all of the NBA so if any team can sustain injuries to key players, the team should be able to hold it together while waiting for their guys to heal up.
The Hawks will be counting on the likes of Kevin Huerter, Solomon Hill, and Skylar Mays to pick up the slack for the missing contributors. Only time will tell how this team will react and mold with the missing players but as this team showed last season, Coach McMillian is very capable of getting his team to perform under pressure.
While losing some key guys will hurt the Hawks, the team has been getting big-time performances from the likes of Clint Capela and John Collins.
Led by Trae Young, this team should have no issue navigating this stretch of the season while dealing with some inconvenient injuries. The seven-game winning streak was spearheaded by Capela and Collins’ best play of the season so far.
With the light schedule ahead of the Hawks, the team is poised to continue its winning ways into the next quarter of the season.