The Atlanta Hawks will almost certainly look back at their 118-108 loss to the Toronto Raptors as a missed opportunity. It drops them to 41-38 on the season and snaps their winning streak at five games. With just four games to go coming in, there wasn’t much wiggle room for the Hawks to improve as it was.
They are now locked into the Play-In Tournament because of this, but that is not the only ripple effect of dropping a game in which they never led after halftime. The Raptors also tied the regular-season series.
There is also the matter of the Brooklyn Nets beating the Houston Rockets.
That knocks the Hawks back into the nine-seed with the second leg of a back-to-back against the Washington Wizards set for Wednesday.
The Atlanta Hawks playoff outlook to a substantial hit with the loss to TOR
The Hawks got 26 points and 15 assists out of Trae Young who shot 43.5 percent from the floor and hit 3-of-8 triples. Thay also got 20-plus points each out of Kevin Huerter, who hit 5-of-9 threes, and De’Andre Hunter. Bogdan Bogdanovic was right there with 19 points on 41.2 percent shooting with 5-of-12 bombs.
Clint Capela also logged his 33rd double-double of the season.
Atlanta even shot better from the floor than Toronto both overall (45.7% to 43.6%) and from outside (37.8% to 25.7%).
Still, they were not able to overcome allowing a season-high 60 rebounds; four more than the previous mark set against the Portland Trail Blazers on Mar 14. It is just the 40th occurrence of a team recording at least 60 boards in a game this season.
On top of locking themselves into the Play-In Tournament, the Hawks let the Raptors lock themselves into a playoff spot. They now sit fifth above the Chicago Bulls who also clinched with the Cleveland Cavaliers falling to the Orlando Magic. At least now the Play-In field is set meaning we know which three potential matchups to prepare for.
Brooklyn’s lead is by virtue of winning the regular-season series 3-1 despite the Hawks getting a huge win over them in their previous game.
So, even if the Hawks and Nets finish with the same record, the Hawks will have to travel.
Hawks have the head-to-head tiebreaker on Cleveland
— Mike Conti (@MikeConti929) April 6, 2022
Brooklyn has the head-to-head tiebreaker on the Hawks
Hawks have the head-to-head tiebreaker on Charlotte
If CLE-BKN-ATL ends in a three way tie, the order is *currently* BKN-ATL-CLE. The Nets play the Cavs again.
That could be disastrous for their postseason outlook as they are just 15-23 on the road despite wins in three of their last five tries. They are 5-5 against the other Play-In participants but are just 2-3 on the road.
They lost their most recent matchup with the Charlotte Hornets, their current Play-In opponent, on the road on Mar 16. While they did drop their only trips to Brooklyn and Cleveland, their loss to the latter came at the beginning of the season. The Cavaliers are just 3-7 now in their last 10 games after their hot start.
There are no remaining head-to-heads against the other Play-In teams so the Hawks will need some more help if they want to climb into the seventh spot still.
Both them and the Nets are just two wins and one loss back of Cleveland who looks very likely to concede the position. In that sense, they are the best draw for the Hawks right now followed by the Hornets, who are just one game back in the 10th seed.
The Nets are the wild card matchup that could very well come down to who gets to host. That is just one of the many ripple effects this loss had on the Hawks postseason outlook.