Quin Snyder urges calm amidst the Atlanta Hawks' recent struggles, emphasizing resilience and strategic improvement over panic as they navigate a tough patch.
The Atlanta Hawks have lived in extremes this season, and the past two weeks have brought the sharper edge of that reality.
After closing their second West Coast trip with two wins and some momentum, the Hawks followed it with a stretch that has pulled them back toward the middle of the Eastern Conference. Atlanta has gone 2-3 over its last five games, including a late collapse against the Portland Trail Blazers and a lopsided loss to the Boston Celtics, sliding back into 10th in the standings after once starting the season 12-8.
The most jarring moment came Saturday night against the Celtics. Atlanta trailed by as many as 43 points in a game that unraveled quickly and never stabilized. Boston knocked down 22 three-pointers, just two shy of its season high, and controlled the game from the opening stretch. It was the kind of performance that invites alarm from the outside.
Inside the Hawks’ locker room, the tone has been different. Head coach Quin Snyder has consistently resisted framing the recent slide as a crisis, even as the results have worsened.
“You don’t want to get into ‘the sky is falling,’” Snyder said. “This adversity is something we’ve got to use. I think formulaically it’s a good thing. There are things that we know if we do, that we’re going to be better.”
That perspective matters for a team whose identity earlier in the season was built on resilience. Atlanta routinely erased double-digit deficits during its 12-8 start, leaning on pace, energy, and defensive pressure to swing games back in its favor. Over the last month, that margin for error has shrunk.
Since Dec. 1, the Hawks have ranked among the league’s bottom ten teams in defensive rating, a sharp drop from the early-season form that allowed them to get out and run. This week, Atlanta sits 25th defensively, surrendering 121.3 points per 100 possessions. That erosion has rippled into the offense, where the Hawks shot just 43.5 percent from the field, fourth-worst in the league over the same span.
Snyder pointed to competitiveness and execution as early warning signs against Boston.
“I think there’s a number of factors,” Snyder said. “We’re coming back from a pretty good stretch of games where I thought we didn’t have, talked about before the game, finding some juice. We didn’t have that. And I think when we talk about that, it manifests itself, just the competitiveness or urgency, whether it be up at the point of a screen, execution or someone makes the three, not running hard enough, where we get spacing and we can get to the rim.”
Snyder added that the offensive issues appeared immediately.
“The beginning of the game, we didn’t have good possessions and took contested, midrange shots without moving the ball,” he said. “That’s not who we are, that’s not how we play. So I think our commitment to some of those things offensively was lacking, especially early.”
While some of the recent inconsistency has coincided with integrating C.J. McCollum and Corey Kispert into the rotation, the underlying struggles predate the trade that brought them to Atlanta. The defensive drop-off and declining efficiency began weeks earlier, making the current stretch less about disruption and more about regression.
That context shapes Snyder’s insistence on patience. The Hawks are not spiraling, but they are recalibrating — learning what slipped, what still works, and what must be restored. With a manageable upcoming schedule and a pivotal MLK Day matchup looming, the message has been less about urgency through fear and more about urgency through clarity.
Perspective, in Snyder’s view, is not denial. It is a refusal to let one difficult stretch define the trajectory of a season still very much in motion.