Atlanta Hawks 2024-25 season ends with Play-In loss to Miami Heat in overtime thriller
Brad Rowland (@BTRowland) hosts Episode 1956 of the Locked on Hawks podcast, breaking down Friday’s Play-In matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and the Miami Heat. Topics include the end of the 2024-25 season for the Hawks, an ice-cold shooting half at the wrong time, a furious comeback from Atlanta, Onyeka Okongwu’s impressive ironman performance, Trae Young tying it in the final seconds of regulation, an overtime period to forget, and much more.
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23 Comments
23:22 speak for yourself here, Brad, I don’t think that was a bad inbounds play, and it’s especially better than Quin for some reason having small Trae of all players inbounds the play over Miami trees to teammates with zero ball handling skills on the play before. They were lucky to not have straight up lost the game right then and there. You should give that more attention than the inbound play where they, I dunno, actually passed it in to their best player and ball-handler, like they should have to begin with
"Let's go Heat" chants in Atlanta, forever!
I still don’t know why Trae refuses to work on his off ball offense skills. He keeps having terrible shooting games because a) he shoots horrible contested shots, especially early in the shot clock, and b) he loves to either try and shoot with 3 Heat players on him or drive to the basket being a foot shorter than everyone in the paint. The driving is fine in the regular season, but postseason it won’t work because the refs won’t bail him out then, and he is too dependent on them. I understand the whole Heat team focused on him again, but I don’t care, it’s not an excuse anymore, he’s had 3-4 years to figure it out. You’re supposed to be a STAR and real stars are unstoppable, no matter what the situation is, that’s why they are stars. He needs to improve his shooting if he wants to be a real star and not a fraud. That being said, big props to him for that last drive in regulation, that was incredible
We’re lucky to have Brad covering the Hawks. Thank you!
The HAWKS need tall shooters !! Anyone that plays 2k25 can tell you what's wrong with Atlanta. No interior defense …poor defensive IQ…Zach has potential but Sarr would have fit this team MUCH better with his size. Dyson is good complimentary player but in situations like a play in game YOU NEEDED A 2 GUARD WHO CAN LIGHT UP THE BASKET. Dyson can't do that. The Hawks have a decent core team but injuries keep setting them back. The Hawks have MULTIPLE players starting that should be in complimentary roles. Trading Bogdanovic and Hunter was a HUGE mistake. Bogdanovic was having a down year but he should have been given a chance to turn it around. He was a huge scorer for us when he was on his game. We NEED some size on our team. Orlando has Banchero and Wagner two 6-10+ players who can shoot when needed and do multiple things all over the court. That is what the Hawks are missing and why we struggle so much. In the era of the spread the offense you need as many offensive weapons as possible. There is a reason why Cleveland was so willing to give us Niang and Levert. They are just complimentary players.
The Hawks 2 first round picks need to be spent on the best two 6-10+ play makers and shooters they can find. If there is a 7 ft player who can shoot they should give them some consideration also.
Wow, what a season we suffered through again…. I am a little touched by the fans in here looking at the glass as "half full" in a sense. I will say we did beat the betting markets predictions overall, but I never put much stock in what they say though there seems no way to avoid hearing from them in today's sporting world. DD was a positive in not only his defense but in taking and making his opportunity to play count. Zach was also solid and Trae led the league in assists overall again along with finally avg assists per game for the first time. OO finally got a solid shot at starting which may have been delayed abit longer than it should have been, but has shown he is a respectable starting center though still inconsistent depending on matchups. Vit was able to miraculously overcome a cracked vertebrae in seemingly record time. That all being said…. there are some glaring facts that unless the team addresses, simply mean continuing the same cycle of mediocrity coming up next season.
The 2 biggest changes that need to happen in my opinion have to come from the top. Landry is a fool. I'm tired of hearing him trade for semi obscure players like Mann or drafting Djurisic and saying we just "had" to have that person because they displayed Hawk's DNA. 3 seasons deep now and I still don't know what that means and I've not heard anyone that could explain what that truly means… It's a catch phrase to sell us like there is a deeper meaning to the decisions than there really is. If I'm judging the team based on what he's said over the years and what I've seen on the floor…. what Hawk's DNA really means is we're willing to gamble on obscure players, cross our fingers, and hope we can justify the move later. That's not much different from what most sporting teams do except we put a catchy name on it to sound like we've got some elaborate full-proof formula to winning. Landry's take over as GM, by no coincidence, ushered in the Dejonte experiment which blew up in our face and we're still paying for it for another couple years ahead. But it led to us getting DD… at the cost of 2 winning seasons might I add and we'll be no better next year fighting between 6-10 as we're currently constructed depending on injuries "which our team is 1 trae young injury from winning 25 or less games in a season. 2nd is Quinn Snyder. I don't see him having the ability to adapt during games at all…. He leans too much on players like Niang who shouldn't play more than 16mins a game. I'd have played Vit over Mann. The defense might be slightly in Mann's favor, but the turnovers and offense are in Vit's as well as Vit has history with the team and knowing the schemes. In important games you go with the sure things you can and minimize your wild cards. Niang is a good player, but he's not a…, and should never be your top 2 offensive weapon or you can expect to lose alot more than win. Quinn doesn't seem to adapt to situations and when you can see the ship taking on water, rather than find ways to plug the holes, rides the ship to the bottom. Gueye clearly needed more playing time down the stretch of games along with Zach and he did what he'd game planned even with loss after loss. It's ok if someone fouls out a few times during the season, atleast you maximized what you could from what you had. I'm with Brad on this fully, what if they did foul out….? You weren't using them anyways after you sat them and the team fell into such ridiculous holes. Also, our defense after JJ got hurt and CC sat out was atrocious!! You can only say that teams got lucky from deep so many times before it's not luck, it's a clear weakness. We don't bump shooters on screens to mess with them mentally nor do we consistently close out night after night. Our rebounding is not good. Shooting more 3's won't fix the defense and you can't rely on "good shooting nights" for wins.
To a more baffling point…. I hope the organization didn't shut down players for the season with hopes of making the team look better next season. Like some "amazing turn around" has occurred because of such a great front office leading us…. CC I'm quite sure coulda waited till the offseason for the finger surgery, but given he wasn't gonna start and wanted a fresh chance with his next team they elected to let him have it and sit out for health reasons. His experience, size, and defense coulda moved the needle down the stretch of the season. JJ…. fuzzy on this one. If it is as bad as they've made it, this is an injury we are going to have chronic issues with. It was minimal contact when it occurred and his other shoulder had a similar problem the season before. You want to put him at PF with 2 questionable shoulders? I stated in the previous off season I'd wait to give a contract to JJ till we see what he could do with a full healthy season. Not the Hawks… I have no faith that he's going to stay healthy and we're tied into a big contract worse than Hunter's was. Look how long it took to unload him. Your arms do nearly everything in basketball which are obviously controlled at your shoulders. Now imagine just dunking and pulling on those shoulders which is arguably his greatest strength he has against opponents.
I'd be asking about Sabonis for rebounding, passing, and scoring. Not sure what he's making but it can't be 40-50mil a season. I'd be looking at getting a backup point guard. Keaton woulda been more handy for us than he was even used. Bufkin is 2 yrs in and for all intents and purposes, he's still a rookie experience wise. I do know of a couple excellent coaches on the market from Denver and Memphis that are known for pushing their teams to get the most from the players. The Landry/Snyder era has been shockingly underwhelming and this is going to be the season that all blame or praise will fall on Trae Young's shoulders. And rightfully so. I love Trae but it's time to be a professional and the antics are only fun when your winning. He's gotta learn to read the social situations better. If we could get another serious big and move OO to PF and JJ to SF, we could then put Zach as our 6th man and take the foul trouble somewhat outta the equation. It would also allow him to play looser against another teams bench players rather than always a star. Think Hunter or Bogey for us, playing starter minutes but against the lesser competition. So many reasons this would work well. Oh well, I can hope the organization realizes and wakes up before Trae washes his hands of us. Will be rooting for Cleveland to win a championship w/o Lebron and against the Celtics this post season. Have a good summer all!!
Yall were talking mad Sh*t before the game
And look now
Blaming the refs and LUCK! This was hard to watch.
The Atlanta Hawks are and were not better than the Miami Heat. We have better players better bench better coaching and we veat yall.
We really were just helping yall out. Yall would have been 4-03d by the Cavs
Better luck next year
Miami in 🖐
Thanks for another season of great coverage Brad! We will be watching this off-season
Guys just gotta hit shots. Plain and simple. It’s just felt like guys were pressing and when you’re pressing the thing that struggles the most is your shot. It’s just not as fluid. You’re tight, hitches are in your shot motion that usually aren’t there and it leads to shots being off target and/or flat. Risacher started singing his leg across his body it looked like.
I was worried going into overtime. We never felt in control the whole game. I know the fans would’ve been mad if he missed but I would’ve been comfortable with Trae taking a deep dagger to possibly end the game. Once it went to overtime I just had a bad feeling.
Salute to Onyeka Okongwu 🫡. He played a hell of a game and he gave so much effort.
This was a very fitting way to end this hawks season. Having a bench player shoot light out…
Well I was hoping I wasn’t gonna have to say this this early but again thank you Brad for another amazing season. I feel like most hawks fans do appreciate you and all you do but I would like you to know that I at least do. Go hawks until I die. Lets get Trae and Dyson extension done let’s get Zacch in the weight room and do dark magic to keep Jalen healthy 🎉
Great host and podcast. (From a Lock on Magic listener)
Team underperformed; coach Quinn out-coached far too many times. Predictable team, struggled to make shots. Poor TO management. Garrison MATHEWS grossly under utilized as a 3pts weapon. Time for coaching change. Malone will be a much better fit
The Heat looked like the better team I cant lie. I was honestly just shaking my head at Tyler Herro, he was hitting Kobe shots all night.
I wonder if we can get sabonis if the kings are rebuilding maybe. Idk if we can move okongwu back to the bench at this point, But nba depth is so real and hawks shouldn’t succumb to being content with decent overall play. Especially with our injury history we could afford having more starting caliber talent off the bench and with okongwu’s new skill set he could see closer to 30 min off the bench or a starting spot if sabonis is injured or Jalen is injured
I still don't understand trading Hunter and Bogi. Traded to instant playoff teams. Hindsight is a gut punch.
Brad, you are the hardest working man in podcasting. Thanks for all of your hard work and dedication. Looking forward to Hawks updates this summer.✌🏼
The only thing that matters now is Jalens return – when is it
They didn't start niang in overtime! He had 20 in the game. And you start mann in overtime tf
NOT-TOO-HAPPY MIAMI FAN HERE.
Many Miami fans wanted Atlanta to save Miami from itself. The Heat's juicy lottery pick is now gone and Miami's tank-worthy ten-game losing streak was wasted.
Thanks for nothing, Harry the Hawk, Trae, Quin, etc.
Brad : If this means anything to your luck/variance theories, Davion Mitchell has been a 45% 3pt shooter since coming to Miami earlier this February.
Hope Trae leave need a another look
As effective as Georges Niang looked this game, we have to remember Miami is the best matchup in the league for him simply because the Hawks can (and did) put him on Kyle Anderson, the only player who is slow enough for Georges to guard. It really sucks that of the 3 players we acquired via trade this season, we are more tied to the ones that are not a very big help, Caris is a free agent and may get more money elsewhere than cheap Tony Ressler is willing to pay.