When the Atlanta Hawks take on the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday, they will attempt to boost their fleeting hopes of avoiding the play-in tournament.
The Hawks are coming off a 134-125 defeat to the Boston Celtics on Saturday. They are four and a half games behind the New York Knicks in the race for the No. 6 playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 14 games remaining. The top six teams will not participate in the play-in tournament, so Atlanta is in seventh place, 1/2 game behind Miami.
Minnesota is in a better playoff position than Brooklyn, which it lost to 124-123 in overtime. Dallas and the Timberwolves are tied for the No. Seventh in the Western Conference They trail No only one game. 6 Golden State, despite the fact that four of their next five games are away.
The two teams meet for the first time this season, in this one. The teams’ last five encounters have been won by Atlanta.
After the All-Star break, the players of Atlanta and their new coach, Quin Snyder, continue to get used to one another. He took over three games. After the Hawks allowed the Celtics to make 20 3-pointers, Snyder wants to see more emphasis placed on defense, particularly on 3-pointers.
Trae Young of Atlanta and Marcus Smart of Boston got into a fight, which resulted in both players getting tangled up on the court and Smart being kicked out. Snyder stated that there were other issues that were of greater concern to him, while Young stated that he had “nothing much to say” regarding the incident.
Young, who scored 35 points and had 13 assists in the game against Boston, now has the most Eastern Conference games with at least 30 points and 10 assists.
The Hawks will need to find a way to slow down Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, who was the No. 1 pick out of Georgia after one season. 1st overall pick in the 2020 draft. Edwards is currently averaging 24.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game. He’s likewise hitting 2.7 3-pointers per game and making 36.8 percent of his endeavors from the bend.
Brooklyn was defeated by 32 points from Edwards. After scoring the same number of points in a defeat to Philadelphia, it was his 20th game with 30 points and his second 32-point game in a row. In his past four games against Atlanta, he has scored 14.3 points on average.
Karl-Anthony Towns continues to play for Minnesota despite missing 47 games due to a severe calf sprain. The previous week, he participated in some on-court drills, but he is still unable to practice. Austin Rivers missed Friday’s game with back spasms, and Jaylen Nowell has missed six games in a row with a left knee injury.
With tightness in his back, Atlanta’s Bogdan Bogdanovic missed the previous game.
