Expert Poster

I honestly don't think Trae's shot selection has been that different than usual. He's just not hitting tonight. Fortunately he's still getting others involved. Play 12 good minutes and it's on to Milwaukee.

Huerter is playing great defense on Curry. You have to play him tight and take away space on the 3. If he gets past you and gets off a runner from inside the arc, you can live with that.

I think I'd prefer to go into next year with Capela and monitor Okongwu's growth. If he continues to progress well, I could see looking at Turner or another big who stretches the defense, knowing that Okongwu can provide a lot of what Capela currently does.

I think I'd try to throw Collins and Gallinari at him and let Capela concentrate on the paint area. If they're reasonably healthy (with Bogi available and no additional injuries occurring in game 7), I think the Hawks can hang with anyone left in the playoff field.

If we're without Bogi, someone like Collins or Huerter will need to have a career-best game. It'd also be nice if we could contain Seth Curry and he finally has an off night.

Big picture, we're way ahead of schedule and the basketball universe is having their eyes opened as to how good Trae Young is. Living in the moment though... man, it's tough being an Atlanta sports fan. Just seems like we can never quite get it done in the very biggest moments. Hopefully we can buck the trend in game 7. Free throw shooting was a travesty tonight. It was as if we let Ben Simmons shoot for us. If we make the freebies at a normal clip, we likely win.

Before the playoffs, I wasn't even seriously entertaining the idea of the Hawks making it to the Finals, but the combination of their high level play and the attrition throughout the league makes it a real possibility. Sucks to be without Hunter, but just about everyone is missing or has missed someone critical, or have one of their stars playing who would absolutely be sidelined for the same injury in the regular season. Realistically, Embiid, Harden, Kawhi, and Donovan Mitchell would all be in street clothes for an extended period if it were February, and even Trae would probably miss a game

All things considered, yes the NBA would probably prefer that the Nets or Sixers come out of the East rather than the Hawks. I don't think that really matters as far as who actually wins, though. The biggest bias in NBA officiating pertains to players who get superstar treatment. For the first time in 30 years, the Hawks have such a player.

I think Nate will get the job full time, and deservedly so. I'm not a huge fan of some of his in-game moves, but to be fair, there's no coach in the league who's going to make the fanbase happy 100% of the time. This may be the most talented team he's ever had while coaching, which is pretty crazy given that he's been coaching for years and we didn't have a single player on the all-star team. I think his postseason record prior to this year was like 9-28--which you could argue means he doesn't do well in the playoffs, but it could just be a symptom of taking overachieving teams to the pos

Didn't say he should be fired at all, but okay!

This is going to be in Sixers' players heads if they get another double digit lead this series. You could see them tightening up when the lead got down to 10 or so. Maybe the Falcons can recommend them a good sports psychologist... but not until the Hawks send them home for good.

Sixers didn't know what to do with both Lou and Trae in there.

Now

We'll need to start hacking Ben here soon to have even a remote chance.

At the very least we've forced them to revert back to their starters earlier than they would've liked to.