Thursday thumping reminded Hawks progress that’s still needed

If you missed Game 6 the other night, keep it that way.

It was a disaster rolled into a catastrophe, then deep fried and dipped in calamity. And unfortunately, the Hawks (46-36) just need to own it until training camp rolls around in September.

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After losing by 11, then 16, then 29 points in this series alone, surely the Hawks would compose themselves to fight to the bitter end.

Yeah…no.

One thing is abundantly clear: these Hawks were not ready for the big stage. A lot of work remains if they organization is to achieve something higher than “flatly embarrassed on national TV in an elimination game.”

At one point in the second half of the regular season, the Hawks mired in 10th place in the Eastern Conference. But the 20-6 stretch after the All-Star break had a lot of us (myself included) thinking they had found something special from within.

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And then the Knicks gave them a painful reminder of how far they still need to go.

That’s not to say that there is nothing to take away from the post-All-Star break surge — or from the season at large. Jalen Johnson grew (offensively at least) into an elite, ‘first name on the team scouting report’ player. But his limitations were on full display in the New York series.

“It sucks,” Johnson had to say on media day about the crushing Game 6 defeat. “It’s a terrible feeling. It’s not the way you want the series to end, of course. A lot of fuel going into next season. A lot of fuel going into the offseason for everybody. We’re gonna make sure this never happens again, we never get this type of feeling again. Just a sick feeling to our stomachs.”

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was maybe the single biggest feel-good story of the season. He somehow doubled his scoring output while shooting more efficiently on a much bigger team role than the year previous, winning the Most Improved Player award.

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He then shot just 9-for-28 (32%) from two in the playoff series.

The Hawks couldn’t get handle the ball nor create advantages well enough for playoff-level ball pressure. In the first half of Game 6 alone, the Hawks coughed the ball up…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/thursday-thumping-reminded-hawks-progress-120000526.html

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Publish date : 2026-05-02 12:00:00

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