The winning streak has ended and the Atlanta Hawks find themselves in the middle of a west coast road trip. The Hawks continue to get healthy and they appear to be adjusting to the new changes to the roster. The negative thing, though, is that they have only won a single game in the past week.
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at where the Hawks fall in this week’s power rankings roundup after a 1-3 record in the last seven days.
NBA.com — No. 14
After an 8-0 start to Nate McMillan’s tenure as interim head coach, the Hawks have lost three of their last four games to fall back to .500. What was the league’s second-ranked defense over the winning streak (with five of the eight games against bottom-seven offenses) hasn’t held up against the top-10 offenses of the Clippers, Kings and Nuggets. The Hawks led by 15 at halftime on Monday and have been one of the league’s better teams at holding onto double-digit leads, but somehow allowed the Clips to score 71 points on only 42 possessions in the second half.
John Collins celebrated the passing of the trade deadline by scoring a career-high 38 points at Golden State on Friday, with 24 of the 38 coming in his 24 minutes alongside Clint Capela. The Capela addition has Collins taking a higher percentage of his shots away from the basket. Last season, his 1.31 points per possession as a roll man ranked second among 26 players who averaged at least 2.5 roll-man possessions per game. This season, he’s been nearly as efficient (1.20 per possession), but his volume has been cut from 5.1 to just 2.7 possessions per game. Collins has made the best of the situation, shooting just as well on catch-and-shoot 3s (38.7%) as Danilo Gallinari (38.8%).
The Hawks will face two more top-10 offenses (those of the Suns and Pelicans) as their eight-game trip concludes this week.
ESPN — No. 14
Nate McMillan’s eight-game win streak as the Hawks’ interim coach came to an end at the start of the week when Atlanta dropped a game to the Clippers. It will also be another long week on the road for the Hawks, who are currently on the league’s longest road trip of the season: eight games. They’ll travel to Phoenix, San Antonio and New Orleans this week before finally having a home game again on April 4 against the Warriors.
CBS Sports — No. 16
The Hawks made a relatively major move at the deadline, sending Rajon Rondo to the Clippers in exchange for Lou Williams and a couple of second-round picks. Back in his hometown, Williams should add some punch to Atlanta’s second unit, and they’re hoping he gets back to his Sixth Man of the Year production after a rough season in L.A. The Hawks came down from their new coach high this week, losing three of four games.
The road trip does not get any easier as the Hawks look to take on three more opponents away from home, beginning with Phoenix on Tuesday. Hopefully this time next week, the Hawks will be able to keep their record above .500.