4 minutes Boston find themselves in much better form after indifferent end of 2021. Can they carry continue on this impressive run.
Start Sunday off with a little NBA action between two teams that are on the rise in the Eastern Conference when the Atlanta Hawks take on the Boston Celtics in Boston in a nationally televised game on ABC. The Hawks were quiet at the NBA trade deadline after it was rumored they might have been interested in trading their power forward, John Collins. Collins had been rumored to be wanting out of Atlanta, but he has been playing his best basketball of the year the last few weeks, and the Hawks have been rolling with him. Last month, the Hawks did trade Cam Reddish, and apparently, they were satisfied just making that move. The Celtics were fairly active at the trade deadline, trading Josh Richardson to acquire a nice young guard from the Spurs in Derrick White. They also flipped Dennis Schroeder for Daniel Theis for his second stint with the team. These two teams will face off against each other as everyone can witness Boston's new additions and see if the Hawks can still hang with them.
Two Underperforming Teams go Head-to-head
The Hawks had a terrible December and first half of January that put them on the outside looking in to the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. Since then, the Hawks have been one of the hottest teams in the league. They won seven games in a row starting on January 17th and have already gotten themselves into that 10th spot to be in competition to make the NBA's play-in game. The Hawks felt that their current roster is good enough to compete again in the Eastern Conference playoffs like they did last year when they made the conference finals in the East. Trae Young is still one of the best point guards in the NBA, and he has the ability to carry a team deep into the playoffs, as he proved last year.
Boston has had a similar season to the Hawks thus far. A terrible December was pushing the Celtics further down in the Eastern Conference standings before a late push to get them back into the top seven in the standings. This team is hot right now, just like the Hawks. The Celtics last loss actually came from the Hawks, but that was all the way back on January 28th. The Celtics haven't lost since, as they are currently on a six-game winning streak as of Thursday. A big reason the Celtics were losing a lot of games was due to the absence of Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart from the lineup. With them both back, Brown has elevated this team's offense and Smart the defense. This team is much improved with them back healthy. They will prove to be crucial in this game and the rest of the season.
A key for the Celtics will be to see if these trades they made will pay off immediately. The goal of this team should be to improve from the seventh ranked team to the sixth so they can avoid the play-in game. These additions of Derrick White and Daniel Theis make them a much tougher team than with Schroeder and Enes Freedom. They should also just be overall improvements that can help them on both ends of the floor. It will be key to get these two integrated into the rotation for this game so they can effectively contribute. Boston gave away Josh Richardson as well who had been great for them recently. It is a gamble for the Celtics, but everyone will see how they look, and if they can continue their recent winning ways come Sunday.
For the Hawks, this team has bet on themselves. For this matchup they will need to give it their all as both of these teams have been hot. It should prove to be a competitive and heated game. As it stands, these teams would both meet in the play-in game as the 10th seed Hawks would take on the seventh seed Celtics. Defense has been an issue this year for the Hawks and they didn't do anything to address it at the trade deadline. It will be crucial for the Hawks to give some resistance to two of the best offensive players in the NBA that the Celtics have in Tatum and Brown. A lot of that will fall on the young wing DeAndre Hunter for the Hawks, but it is a mystery as to who will be able to guard the other wing on the Celtics.
This game features two teams that have been underperforming this year facing off against each other. Recently, they both have been good, but this game will slow down one of these teams and catapult the other team into an even hotter streak. A lot is on the line for these teams to get back into contention in the East. The East is now stacked with the Bucks, Bulls, Heat, 76ers, and Nets all seen as clear favourites over both of these teams in the East, unless they can change that narrative that starts here.
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