The Atlanta Hawks continue to tumble in the standings with the trade deadline looming. They’ll carry an eight-game losing streak into their game at Detroit on Monday night.
Atlanta’s outlook for the remainder of the season looks quite different than it did two weeks ago. In the Hawks’ last victory, they won in overtime on Boston’s home floor to move three games above the .500 mark. That was more than two weeks ago.
Not only have they fallen in the win-loss column, they lost one of their best players to a season-ending injury. The team announced Wednesday that Jalen Johnson would require surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder.
The latest developments could convince the front office to make alterations to the roster. To the credit of the players who are still playing, they are fighting.
The Hawks nearly snapped their losing streak at Indiana on Saturday. After Atlanta erased an 18-point deficit, the Pacers hit some key 3-pointers down the stretch and pulled out a 132-127 victory.
Trae Young did all he could to keep his team in the game, racking up 34 points and 17 assists. Young’s 11.5 assist average leads the league.
“This is a team sport,” he said. “I tell everybody all the time, you want to be an individual in this sport, you go play tennis, golf, all those other sports. This ain’t it. So I’m gonna continue to trust my guys and get them the ball.”
With Johnson out of the lineup, coach Quin Snyder is searching for a steady replacement in the starting lineup. Dominick Barlow, who is on a two-way contact, got the nod against the Pacers and contributed 10 points and three rebounds in only 13 minutes.
“Honestly, just excited about playing,” he said.
The Pistons have won the first two contests of the four-game season series against the Hawks. All-Star Cade Cunningham recorded a triple-double and scored the game-winning basket in the first meeting, a 122-121 win on Nov. 8. He notched 29 points and 11 assists in a 114-104 Pistons win on Jan. 22.
Most recently, Cunningham led seven Pistons in double figures with 22 points to go with 15 assists as they defeated the visiting Chicago Bulls 127-119 on Sunday afternoon.
The Pistons recorded 38 assists on 54 field goals and scored 80 points in the paint.
“Everybody is incorporated and involved and that makes everybody feel good,” forward Tobias Harris said. “That’s what this team is about — enjoying the whole progression of this season and who we are becoming as a group.”
The NBA’s worst team last season has a 25-24 record.
“We keep an underdog mentality,” coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “We are aware of what people’s expectations were for us coming into the season and it doesn’t change. We have to keep that edge and that chip on our shoulder, so we don’t allow ourselves to get comfortable. We want to play a style of basketball that’s unique to the Pistons. We want to make people uncomfortable when they come to play us and in order to do that, you’ve got to have that edge and that’s what we’re trying to maintain and focus on.”
–Field Level Media
