Perhaps this was the kind of win for which the Atlanta Hawks roster was built this season.
Hitting potentially the hardest, most critical stretch of games on their schedule, it was most unfortunate from a timing perspective for the team to lose both Trae Young and Clint Capela, Atlanta’s two best players this season, to injury. Both were scratched from the Friday evening contest with the Miami Heat.
But the absences didn’t change how big of a game this was. Entering play on Friday, Atlanta was just a game ahead of the Heat in the Eastern Conference standings.