Pistons vs. Hawks preview: Squaring off against a hot Hawks team

If it seems like forever since the Pistons faced the Hawks, it’s because it has been. This is the last time these two teams will face off this season and the first time they have done so in 2024.

The Pistons generally play the Hawks pretty tough, as evidenced by their 6 point losses in the previous two matchups this season. However, the Pistons are yet to face this version of the Hawks, who have been playing much better since Trae Young went down with an injury.

It could be entirely coincidental, but they are trending up at the right time as they work to lock in their spot in the Play-In Tournament.

There is no better way to get an easy win than against the very short-handed Pistons, who enter this game with 7 players either out with injury or questionable for this game. Nothing like playing competitive basketball into April, am I right?

Game Vitals

Where: State Farm Arena is Atlanta, GA
When: Wednesday, April 3 at 7:30 pm EST
Watch: Bally Sports Detroit
Odds: Hawks (-13.5)

Analysis

It turns out that when you have 2 point guards and one of them is out with an injury, the other point guard plays much better while running the show by themselves. That is the reality with the Atlanta Hawks, as DeJounte Murray has played much better basketball since Trae Young went down with an injury in late-February and the Hawks as a team have been playing much better.

I don’t think this is necessarily a knock on Trae Young as a player, as he is a good offensive player, but he is also a very ball-dominant player, so if you only have one of those players on the court instead of two in Young and Murray, the team is going to have better offensive flow, even if you do lose some tough shot-making ability.

It will probably lead to some interesting discussions for the Hawks as they enter the offseason and try to navigate how they want to move forward with a roster that is consistently in the Play-In Tournament but doesn’t have much potential to rise above that.

They do have one solid building block in Jalen Johnson, who is in the midst of a breakout season and could receive some votes for the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award. He has missed the last few games with an ankle injury, but it sounds like he will play.

Old friend Saddiq Bey tore his ACL a few weeks ago and will be out the rest of the season.

For the Pistons, they are coming off a tough loss to the Grizzlies after leading by 15 points at halftime, they fell apart in the 2nd half and almost stole the game back with a late-comeback, but a couple of missed wide open 3s allowed the Grizzlies to hold on.

Cade Cunningham did all that he could to try to win with 36 points, 8 assists, and 4 rebounds, but it was not enough to overcome a 40 point game by Jaren Jackson Jr.

The Pistons struggled to defend Jackson after Jalen Duren left the game after losing his tooth, he is not listed on the injury report, so he should be playing tonight. Duren isn’t even a good defender, but he at least has a little more size that the Pistons could have thrown at Jackson as he drove to the basket over and over again.

Cade Cunningham and Marcus Sasser are both listed as questionable tonight, so we will see if one or both play. The Pistons did just sign Jaylen Nowell to a 10-day contract, so that makes me think that one or both of them could be done for the rest of the season. I am not reporting anything, just using context clues to come to a conclusion.

If Cunningham does play, he should be in line for another good game, as he always seems to play well against the Hawks. However, with how well the Hawks have been playing combined with the fact that he is getting very minimal help from teammates, I do not see any way the Pistons win this game.

I can’t wait for the random Jaden Ivey 8-of-8 three point shooting night to steal a win and make me look foolish.