Game Time: 8:00 PM ET, Wednesday, April 6th, 2022 

Venue:   State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia 

Where to Watch: NBA TV

DraftKings:  Spread:  

Fanduel:  Spread:  NL

BetMGM:  Spread: NL
Opening Line: Hawks -9.5

Wizards: 34-44, 12th place Eastern Conference

Hawks: 41-37, 8th place Eastern Conference

An Eastern Conference NBA matchup between a team who hopes to start cooking and a team that is already burnt.  The Washington Wizards are out of contention for the NBA play-in tournament.  They are 6.5 games behind 10th place… with no mathematical chance of catching anybody.  There are just too few games left and too few wins on the Wizards ledger.  I don’t expect the Wizards to be missed by any basketball fans.  The team has bungled the opportunity to build around Bradley Beal over the last 9-10 seasons.  They also have bungled the opportunity to trade Bradley Beal at the peak of his value… which would have been two seasons ago when everyone wanted him.  Now the Wizards look to the NBA draft and whatever else the Wizards do each year to prevent themselves from building a good team. Kyle Kuzma and Bradley Beal are not playing for the team… C Kristaps Porzingis is playing, but is having a relatively soft season in the ppg, rpg, and games played category.  He is a good addition to the team, but more of a “next year” sort of plan. The team is playing young SF Corey Kispert at the SG spot and is playing the veteran shooting guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the small forward spot… the disparate pieces make very little sense… unless they are trying to lose the last few games to secure ping pong balls.  The Atlanta Hawks are beginning to play well (or better) this season. They started out rough… and slowly ramped up.  The have a devastating scoring punch with PG Trae Young and SG Kevin Huerter… and they have a terrible defense on the floor with PG Trae Young and SG Kevin Huerter.  They are a poorly balanced team.  Yet they are in 8th place and will get a play-in game to try and earn a playoff series… Then they will be smacked out of the playoffs by either Miami or Milwaukee.

The Washington Wizards have won 5 of their last ten games.  They went 6-4 ATS during that stretch.  Which is very representative of where they sit in the Eastern Conference… They are better than the Orlando Magic, the Detroit Pistons, and a few others.  They just aren’t any good.  The Boston Celtics pounded them into submission in their last game 144-102.  They lost ATS which was 13 POINTS!  The Celtics had 9 points to spare!  That is a special kind of struggling. Because of the presence of Kristaps Porzingis the Wizards will have a chance against any team that does not have a serious Center.  The Hawks do not have an all-star Center but they do have Clint Capela who is serious… and sometimes they have PF John Collins who is serious( they won’t have him here).  The Wizards will need a big game by Porzingis just to cover… that is if they play Porzingis?

The Atlanta Hawks have won 7 of their last ten games.  They went 7-3 ATS during that stretch.  They are on a 5-game winning streak.  The Hawks are missing PF John Collins who is Out indefinitely with a plantar fasciitis tear in his foot…. This seriously hampers the hawks ability to win a Playoff series… but it does allow PF Danillo Gallinari more playing time which means more scoring… of course Danilo is dealing with swelling in his knee… So we get Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot a shooting guard playing at forward next to SF Deandre Hunter… so they will skip the whole needing a power forward thing… especially since Rui Hachimura and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will be the forwards for Washington.  These two teams are a mess, but the betting opportunity will be obvious once we check the numbers and trends.

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The Wizards are 34-44 on the season, but 31-45-2 ATS.  They have logged 43 Overs, 34 Unders, and 1 Push.  They are 13-25 in road games.

The Hawks are 41-37 on the season, but 35-43 ATS.  They have notched 39 Overs and 39 Unders.  They are 21-17 in home games.

Washington is 22nd in scoring with 108.6 ppg, 25th in rebounds with 43.1 per game, and 7th in AST/TO ratio with 1.9.  On defense they rank 17th while allowing 111.7 ppg.

The Hawks are 6th in scoring with 113.8 ppg, 19th in rebounds with 44.0 per game, and 4th in AST/TO ratio with 2.1.  On defense they rank 22nd while allowing 112.4 ppg from opponents.

Our prediction for Wednesday, April 6th is…. Hawks 123 - Wizards 110

The Hawks will roll the Wizards.  The Wizards have nothing to play for.  No matter how much the individual players may want to play great and look great doing it… both Porzingis and Hachimura will be treated with kid gloves by the coaches and management over these last few games.  They must have a future and they will rest these guys liberally… and since Beal and Kuzma are already out for the season… the Wizards would need a 50 point game from Corey Kispert to get the win.

 

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Washington is 6-3 ATS versus Atlanta the last 3 seasons.
3 of 4 games in this series in Atlanta has gone Over.

Hawks: SF James Johsnon (concussed) Prob ** SF Danilo Gallinari (knee) Quest ** SG Bogdan Bogdanovic (knee) Quest ** PF John Collins (foot) Out

Wizards:  SG Bradley Beal (knee) Out indefinitely ** PF Kyle Kuzma (knee) Out indefinitely

 

Wizards: SF Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, PF Rui Hachimura, C Kristaps Porzigis, SG Corey Kispert, SG Tomas Satoransky

Hawks: SF Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, PF Deandre Huerter, C Clint Capela, SG Kevin Huerter, PG Trae Young

Wizards: Wes Unseld Jr

Hawks: Nate McMillan