The Hawks are ahead of the Knicks in the standings

ATLANTA – With two minutes left in a game on Nov. 29, the Hawks had a lead of 14 and the mighty Cleveland Cavaliers, who started the night with a league-best 17-2 record and pulled their starters off the floor, started it. The Hawks’ “404 Crew” fan section upstairs in Section 122 at State Farm Arena began chanting, “We want the Cup!”

It was the perfect encapsulation of what the league was hoping for when it introduced the in-season NBA Cup tournament – a chance to give the league’s minor leaguers a chance to play meaningful games and win… something.

No, the Hawks will not win the championship this year. They probably won’t even win a playoff series and may not even participate in one, even though the rest of the East is doing its best to make sure that happens.

Still, Atlanta’s group win might have more significance here, despite a 13-12 overall record that includes plenty of mediocre numbers. Look closer and you’ll see that the squad Atlanta used in its back-to-back wins over Cleveland was much stronger than the one it had at its disposal for most of the early season. Ironically, the only thing left to do is get Trae Young going. He leads the league in assists, but an Achilles tendon problem has reduced some of his explosiveness.

All of Atlanta’s players mentioned the Cup environment as a playoff-like environment on November 29th, so the quarterfinals will be a good test for a team that hasn’t had many reps in such environments. And don’t neglect… other motivations.

“We have a few guys that want to go to Vegas,” said Dyson Daniels, who pushed Donovan Mitchell to shoot 5 of 23 in the Cleveland game. “We have played really well in the last few days and we want to keep it up.”

Read the rest of my December 2nd story here.