The Atlanta Hawks fell to the Chicago Bulls 112-108 and despite playing well on the road against the #1 seeded team in the Eastern Conference, they aren't exactly in a position to look at the strong showing as a positive.
"You talk about moral victories? Right now we need victories, not moral victories," says Hugh Douglas. "It's hard to look at last night and think of that as a moral victory,"
"If you had told me going into the game that Trae was going to go 3 of 17, 0 for 5 beyond the arc, I would have said we're going to get beat by 40, and they almost won. Guess what, almost doesn't count in the standings," proclaims John Fricke. "They've got to win the final three (of this 4 game stretch), you have to get wicked hot, and boy wouldn't that have been a jumpstart last night and they came up short."
The Hawks next four games are against Toronto, Boston, Chicago (again), and Washington, all teams that currently hold playoff or play-in spots, however the schedule does get a bit easier if they can survive that stretch and remain in contention.
After last night's loss the Hawks fell out of the 10th seed, no longer in the play-in tournament and will need to recapture the 10-seed at worst if they want any hopes of making a run in this years playoffs.