The Atlanta Hawks were officially eliminated from the NBA’s In-Season Tournament yesterday and group play is now finished. Atlanta finished with a 1-3 record in group play and instead of moving on to the knockout stage of the tournament next week, Atlanta will add two new games to its schedule.
Next Wednesday, Atlanta is going to be hosting the Brooklyn Nets for their second matchup of the season. Next Friday, the Hawks will travel to Philadelphia to have their second matchup of the year with the 76ers.
The in-season tournament did not go the way that the Hawks wanted. They opened up group play with a loss to the 76ers and then followed it up with a win over the Detroit Pistons (who is losing to everyone nowadays). Atlanta had a major opportunity in front of them when they played the Indiana Pacers (who won the group) and they could have had a lead in the group.
They would lose in one of the NBA’s craziest games of the season when they faced the Pacers. The teams combined for over 300 points and both Trae Young and Tyrese Haliburton had monster games. It was arguably the most entertaining game of the year.
After they lost to the Pacers, the in-season tournament fate of the Hawks was pretty much sealed. They could have gotten the wildcard spot if they had won last night and a lot of other stuff happened, but they lost by 23 points to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Atlanta continues their road trip tomorrow against the San Antonio Spurs and then wrap it up on Saturday with a trip to Milwaukee. The Hawks will then get three days off until they play Brooklyn.
After the loss to Cleveland, Atlanta is now 8-9 for the season and now 0-2 without Jalen Johnson.
Not all of Atlanta’s problems can be traced back to the absence of Johnson, but some things that he provides just can’t be replaced and that was again amplified, much like it was in the Sunday night loss to Boston. The rebounding was not very good and the defense was worse than usual.
With the loss, the Hawks are now 8-9 going into the Thursday night matchup with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs.
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