A month ago at the All-Star break, the Atlanta Hawks were stuck in 10th place and appeared headed for another trip to the play-in tournament. Now, they are suddenly within striking distance of a guaranteed playoff spot.

Atlanta has won nine straight games, pushing its record to 36–31 and lifting the team to eighth in the Eastern Conference with 15 games left on their regular season schedule. The Hawks are now just two games behind the similarly surging Miami Heat for the sixth seed, while the fifth-seeded Orlando Magic remain within reach as well. For a franchise that has missed the last two postseasons and has largely struggled since its surprise run to the Eastern Conference finals in 2021, this turnaround has been nothing short of significant.

This Atlanta team is on its longest winning streak since the 2014–15 season, arguably the best regular season campaign in franchise history. That 2015 group won 60 games, ripped off a 19-game winning streak, and reached the Eastern conference finals for the first time since 1958. Their current iteration is still far from that 2015 team, but for the first time in a while, the flight trajectory for the Hawks is again pointing upward.

In their latest outing, they extended their winning streak to nine with an imposing 122–99 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

CJ McCollum scored 30 points, while Jalen Johnson added 23 points, 10 rebounds, and 12 assists. It was Johnson’s 12th triple-double of the season, the second-most in the league behind only Nikola Jokić. With Trae Young sidelined for most of the season before eventually being traded to the Washington Wizards, Johnson has fully embraced a leading role and was rewarded for this with his first career All-Star nod last month.

A few days before Johnson’s shining moment, another significant mark on the calendar–the NBA trade deadline–seems to have changed the trajectory of this team.

Atlanta sent Young to the Wizards for McCollum and Corey Kispert. One can argue that the return was still light for a player of Young’s caliber, but the sacrifice in terms of talent has been outweighed by on-court fit. McCollum has been a solid veteran presence and his expiring deal gives the Hawks far more flexibility moving forward than a massive long-term commitment to Young would have. 

With McCollum stepping into the starting lineup alongside Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dyson Daniels, Johnson, and Onyeka Okongwu, Atlanta has formed one of the league’s best five-man units. They have been the best line-up in the league (Minimum of 100 minutes played) in terms of net rating since the All-Star break, a significant sign that this Atlanta group has what it takes to hang with the league’s best.

The team’s defense has also sharpened considerably since the All-Star break, leading the league in defensive rating over the past month. 

The Hawks look different now. Not only are they building an identity through defense, they are deeper, more balanced, and increasingly comfortable playing through Johnson. If this run is any indication, Atlanta may no longer be fighting merely to survive—it may be building toward something far more stable in the years to come, maybe even something similar to what they had a decade ago with their 2015 team.