Hawks approach postseason one game at a time

“I mean, I feel like you have to have a certain type of mentality anyways to get to this point of the season,” Hawks guard Trae Young said. “But I feel like for us, we gotta come in understanding that it’s a lot at stake. Obviously, if you win, you get into the playoffs. If you lose, you got to fight another game.

“So I think for us, we just, we know what’s at stake, and we got to come in prepared, and we will be with what (coach) Quin (Snyder) has put on the table for us. And we just got to be ready to execute now and from the beginning.”

The NBA began the play-in tournament during the 2020 NBA playoffs with a more pared-down version of the current format. Since 2021, the teams ranked seventh and eighth face each other, with the winner advancing to the playoffs. The loser of that game faces the winner of the game between the ninth and 10th seeds. The winner of that matchup moves to the playoffs as the eighth seed, while the loser goes home.

On Tuesday, the Hawks make their fourth consecutive play-in tournament appearance. They have a 3-1 record in lay-In games after beating the Hornets and Cavaliers in 2022 and the Heat in 2023. They lost to the Bulls in last year’s tournament.

While the Hawks have not advanced further than the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs during the play-in era, achieving that feat is not out of the realm of possibility.

The Heat advanced to the NBA Finals, eventually losing to the Nuggets after making it to the playoffs as the eighth seed after losing to the Hawks in a 7 vs. 8 matchup of the play-in tournament. Then the Heat beat the Bulls in the next game. Then the Heat defeated the Bucks, Knicks and Celtics in the next three playoff rounds.

“Obviously, you know what to expect going into a playing game,” Young said. “I think that’s really the only difference in playing in it before and not. I mean, you just know the field, and you’re not as anxious going into it. You kind of just know what’s at stake. And for us, we know we have two games at it, but we want to get in after the first game. So, we don’t want to just wait to play another play-in game here. We want to play game three and four (of the playoffs) here. So that’s my mindset, and hopefully we go out and execute it.”

But while Young acknowledges his playoff aspirations, Snyder has stressed that he doesn’t want the Hawks to look any further than Tuesday night.

“I don’t think we’re looking beyond a singular game,” Snyder said. “Those situations have a way of taking care of themselves. You got to, as they say, take one at a time. In this case, looking beyond tomorrow night is not something that I want our team doing. I want us completely thrown in, immersed, focused on tomorrow night.”

So, the Hawks will approach this game like they have each of the high-stakes matchups they played down the stretch of the regular season. They’ll go through the same pregame prep and after so many matchups against the Magic over the past three months, they know what to expect.

“I mean, we needed to win these last four or five games so we could give ourselves the best chance in the -In,” Hawks guard Dyson Daniels said. “It gives us a little bit of momentum, just being on the right foot and not having to have any doubts in the back of our head in coming all ready to go. So for us, it’s only what’s next, not what’s in the past. But we’ve got Orlando coming up, they’re a good side. It’ll be a battle for sure. They got a lot of big guys down there, a lot of strong, physical guys, and we know what they’re going to bring, and we just got to beat their intensity.”

Prediction

The Hawks will beat the Magic 114-108, should they keep fouls and turnovers low and with some help from Larry Nance Jr., if he returns to the rotation.