Last Week: Lost to Dallas Mavericks 118-117, Lost to San Antonio Spurs 125-114, Lost to Indiana Pacers 125-113
This Week: 2/15 at New York Knicks, 2/17 at Boston Celtics, 2/19 at Boston Celtics
The Atlanta Hawks are in free fall, losers of seven of their last 10 games. Nothing seems to be going right for them and the news that De’Andre Hunter is expected to be out seven to 10 weeks for knee surgery only exacerbates the problems they are facing.
Trae Young is scoring at a pedestrian level as the team struggles, mustering only 21.7 points per game over the week. He is chipping in 10.7 nightly assists, which is helping John Collins show out. This week the pending free agent averaged 20.0 points and 7.7 rebounds a game for a team in desperate need of production.
On the more critical side, the lack of increased production from Cam Reddish is truly painful for the Hawks. The lack of leap from him offensively is made all the more noticeable when compared to just how much Hunter had improved before going out with injury. His defense (a necessity) keeps him on the court but the Hawks need more from him if they are to remain in playoff contention.
The final negative note comes with two of the more exciting offseason additions for the Hawks continuing to be disappointments. Danilo Gallinari is still not completely healthy. Averaging just 11.0 points per game while shooting 33.3 percent from the floor (27.8 percent from long range) is pretty inexcusable. Rookie Onyeka Okongwu looks even rawer than expected. Eventually, something will need to break right for the Hawks.