On Friday, Dec. 6, Trae Young connected on a key three-pointer in overtime to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers and push the Atlanta Hawks’ winning streak to six consecutive games. Four weeks later, the Hawks and the Lakers will meet for the second and final time during the 2024-25 season, with Atlanta looking to pick up another “double win.”
For the uninitiated, the Hawks own the Lakers’ unprotected first round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, which arrived via New Orleans as part of the deal that sent Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans this summer. As such, Atlanta is heavily invested in the progress of the Lakers this season, and in the two head-to-head battles, the Hawks can notch victories that mean a little bit more than the typical victory over the course of 82 regular season games.
This matchup is also the start of a back-to-back set for Atlanta in Los Angeles, with the team’s first-ever trip to the Intuit Dome on the horizon on Saturday against the Clippers. The Hawks stumbled in Denver on Wednesday, snapping a winning streak and falling to 1-1 on an extended road trip. Overall, a split in the two Los Angeles games would be a reasonably successful outcome, but Atlanta surely wants to get greedy with a sweep.
From an injury standpoint, there is a great deal of uncertainty ahead of Friday’s matchup. Trae Young, Jalen Johnson, and Bogdan Bogdanovic are all listed as questionable for the Hawks, leaving three of the team’s top seven players in limbo. That, of course, includes Atlanta’s leading duo of Young and Johnson, and the team’s quality drops drastically if either is unable to play.
For the Lakers, it is the second night of a back-to-back, though Thursday’s game also took place at home. Anthony Davis missed that contest for Los Angeles, leaving some modicum of uncertainty for the Hawks game, and it would be wise to keep an eye on injury information throughout the day.
Atlanta projects as a small underdog at Crypto.com Arena, but this is a winnable spot for the Hawks... with a bit of extra incentive in play when remembering the draft implications.
