Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks will face the Miami Heat in a win-or-go-home situation in the second round of the Play-In Tournament following both teams’ losses in the opening stanza.
Atlanta fell to the Orlando Magic, sending the latter to the playoffs as the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference. Miami beat the Chicago Bulls to advance to Round 2 and end the host team’s season.
The Hawks went 2-2 against the Heat during the regular season but have lost the last two.
Miami beat Chicago 109-90 on April 16, one day after Atlanta lost to Orlando 120-95. That alone is an ominous sign for the Hawks.
However, the style in which the Heat defeated the Bulls serves as an even more ominous sign for the Hawks, given how the Magic dismantled them from the inside out for the bulk of their contest.
Miami was 28-for-43 in the paint against the Bulls, a 65.1% clip (66.7% in the restricted area).
Orlando was 29-for-42 in the paint against the Hawks, including 20-for-26 in the circle, for a 69%/76.9% split.
The Hawks are admittedly undersized. And while the Heat are not a big squad, per se, they do boast 7-footer Kel’el Ware and play a physical brand of basketball. That latter part was key for the Magic against the Hawks.
Hawks could face tougher challenge vs Heat
Even more ominous for the Hawks, who were fortunate to get back into the game against the Magic, is that they might receive no such grace from the Heat.
Heat stars Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro have Finals experience.
Role players Duncan Robinson have similar experience while others like Andrew Wiggins and Kevin Love – who does not play but is on the roster – are NBA champions. The Hawks can lay no such claims.
And, to top it all off, Bulls head coach Billy Donovan lamented exactly the type of approach the Hawks can expect to see on Friday.
“Herro, off the dribble, got wherever he wanted to. [Daviyon] Mitchell got wherever he wanted to. [Andrew] Wiggins got wherever he wanted to,” Donovan told reporters following his team’s season-ending loss on April 16. “They all got where they wanted to. And we need to be better, collectively, in that area.”
The Heat also shot 37.1% from beyond the arc against the Bulls.
The Bulls are a better perimeter defensive team than the Hawks, allowing opponents to shoot the second-lowest clip from deep during the regular season. Atlanta ranked 27th. It is a similar story offensively, where the Heat ranked 12th in 3P% to the Magic’s 30th this season.
With two days off to regroup, the Hawks must come out with a better effort than they showed against the Magic versus the Heat lest they suffer a similar fate as the Bulls.