The Atlanta Hawks need to send a strong message against the lowly Magic
In many ways, the Atlanta Hawks (27-30) 124-116 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers – who have taken over the Hawks as this year’s darling – added to the frustrations of the season from the outside looking in. Similar to their win over the Phoenix Suns a couple of weeks ago, this win showed what this team is truly capable of.
What made it even better was they got the victory despite being without John Collins to do battle against Cleveland’s dynamic bigs.
It does make losses to backups for the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Clippers sting a bit. But the fact that most of their recent losses have come against some of the league’s hottest (or best-coached in the case of San Antonio) teams helps.
That isn’t the Orlando Magic but the Hawks can still send a strong message.
Stringing together wins ahead of the long break could do wonders for the Atlanta Hawks
The Hawks came into their game against the Cavs having lost four of their previous five games and looking very much like the team that slogged through earlier portions of the season amid injuries and COVID absences. Outside of Collins, who went down versus the Spurs, the Hawks have been mostly healthy with Lou Williams as the only other significant absence.
They have been playing through bumps and bruises, though, with Bogdan Bogdanovic and Delon Wright being listed as questionable ahead of Tuesday’s tilt with Cleveland. That appears to be the case going into Wednesday too on the second night of a back-to-back.
That could be a big factor in whether or not we see Williams break the record for most appearances off of the bench in NBA history.
He tied the record, set by Dell Curry, on Tuesday.
Orlando comes in having lost three in a row and five of their last six. Still, despite having a 2-3 record versus the Hawks this season, they did get the most recent win in the series; a 104-98 upset with the Hawks down Clint Capela, Danilo Gallinari, Kevin Huerter, De’Andre Hunter, and Trae Young.
Collins and the since-traded Cam Reddish combined to score 62 of the Hawks 98 points that night.
Bogdanovic is listed as questionable heading into this game too. He has been huge lately averaging 18.0 points over the last four games. He has just six points on 22.2 percent shooting in the last meeting.
Orlando’s Franz Wagner had 25 points and 4 rebounds but wasn’t overly efficient.
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One of the hallmarks of a good team is winning the games they are supposed to, not playing down to their competition. This has plagued the Hawks all season and could be a result of feeling like success would be guaranteed – we were pretty confident in their ability to repeat last season’s performance.
Jumping on the Magic early and not letting up before the hiatus will send a message that these Hawks are serious.
Coming off of a big win and with an eight-day mini-vacation on the other side of their next 48-minute battle, it would be easy to overlook a struggling opponent like the Magic. But the Hawks are in no position to take anyone lightly.
They are 3-7 this season on the second night of a back-to-back.
Their last such win came on Dec 23 against the Philadelphia 76ers and they are winless in their last three tries. It’s not as though they are facing some titan in the Eastern Conference.
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It’s actually because the Magic are bad that the Hawks need this to be a blowout. The Hawks have made it clear they know what must be done to get to where they want to go. And they have shown capable of doing it. But they’ve let too many games like this get away from them this season. They shouldn’t let that happen on Wednesday.