Perhaps no team has embodied perfect mediocrity over the past several seasons over the Atlanta Hawks, so it makes sense that their record since the start of 2025 is within 10 games of .500 at 37-46.
Atlanta will finish out 2025 with a home game at 3 p.m. ET against the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have gone a much more impressive 53-30 since the start of the year.
Besides the questionable Trae Young, the Hawks should have a clean injury report, with center Kristaps Porziņġis set to make his return after missing 14 of the team’s last 15 games with an illness. Every member of the Timberwolves’ regular rotation will play.
Minnesota is a 5.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-205 Moneyline), with the point total set to 244.5. Atlanta is +170 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s clash between Young and one of his potential trade suitors and offer my prediction.
Minnesota Timberwolves at Atlanta Hawks preview, prediction
With Young missing a month and a half with a knee sprain and Porziņġis missing a month with his illness, the Hawks have hardly had an opportunity to figure out what their fully healthy potential is. Even considering all of the injuries, though, this season has been a disappointment: after a strong offseason that figured to place Atlanta within in the top six of the wide-open East, it sits at the bottom of the Play-In Tournament race at 15-19. Last season’s Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Dyson Daniels has taken a step back offensively, and former first overall pick Zaccharie Risacher is basically the same player he was in his rookie season. Reportedly, the Hawks are already open to moving off of Risacher, just 18 months after selecting him.
The Timberwolves are in a much better position, sitting sixth in a tightly-packed Western Conference, just two and a half games behind the second-seeded San Antonio Spurs. Minnesota secured the core that helped bring it to the conference finals last season, re-signing Julius Randle and Naz Reid, and despite losing Nickeil Alexander-Walker to Atlanta in the offseason, it has hardly missed a beat. Not all is perfect — the Timberwolves still lack secondary ball-handling and could use a better backup rim protector — but having an MVP-level player in Anthony Edwards and arguably the greatest interior defender ever in Rudy Gobert is always a good place to start.
Timberwolves at Hawks pick, best bet
If the Hawks were interested in dealing Young, the last two weeks might well serve as evidence for why they should. Since Young returned from his injury on December 18 — a span in which he’s played five games and sat the other two — Atlanta has collapsed defensively, losing all seven games and allowing at least 126 points in each one. In Young’s 281 minutes this season, the Hawks have had the equivalent of fourth-best offensive rating, but their 129.8 defensive rating would be 7.9 points per 100 possessions worse than the cellar-dwelling Washington Wizards’. If Porziņġis can get back to full health eventually, he could help Atlanta’s ailing defense (in his 42 games last season, he limited opponents to the lowest percentage within six feet among the 46 players who played at least half the season and guarded at least five such shots per game), but it’s almost a guarantee that he’ll be on a minutes restriction tonight.
All of that could be bad news against the league’s ninth-best offense, especially one that is led by one of the league’s most dominant slashers in Edwards. Since Young’s return, the Hawks have allowed 22.7 makes per game in the restricted area, more than any other team in basketball, and while Minnesota has gotten downhill at merely a league-average rate, it has recorded the 10th-highest field goal percentage once it’s gotten there. Atlanta also ranks dead last in both rebounds per game and rebounding percentage across the last seven games, though their rebounding percentage has been 2.6 percentage points better with Porziņġis on the floor. Plus, the Hawks are merely an average finishing team, and Minnesota has had the league’s third-best rim protection. Individually, of the 51 players who have played at least 20 games and guarded at least five shots per game within six feet of the rim, Gobert and Jaden McDaniels have allowed the lowest and seventh-lowest percentages.
With all of its disadvantages inside, Atlanta will need to dominate in transition, but it turns the ball over more than the Timberwolves do and has recorded fewer steals than Minnesota since Young’s return. The Timberwolves have also been far better at drawing fouls, in part because they’ve been more aggressive on their drives. Transition offense is one area in which the Hawks would benefit from playing Risacher more, given that he ranks third on the team in both points off of turnovers and fast-break points despite playing just 24.2 minutes per game, but he’s been ineffective enough as a playmaker that Quin Snyder seemingly hasn’t been willing to do that. They also might benefit from starting Alexander-Walker alongside Young if he plays, given his prowess in transition and, perhaps, his familiarity with Edwards’ moves from guarding him in practice with Minnesota.
Shooting luck doesn’t even suggest that Atlanta’s bad defense over the last seven games has been a fluke. The Hawks have given up the sixth-most wide-open threes across that span, and opponents have hit them at a merely average rate. If anything, it’s their league-average offense, which has converted its uncontested triples at the 11th-highest rate over the last seven games, that’s due for regression. Meanwhile, nothing about the Timberwolves is fluky on either side of the ball: they’ve allowed the 11th-fewest uncontested threes, the second-fewest catch-and-shoot threes, and the fifth-fewest corner threes while generating the ninth-most wide-open tries. Minnesota is even shooting a lower percentage on wide-open triples (39.3%) than it did last season (40.0%).
There are few matchups in which one team has a clear edge in every major facet of the game, but this is one of them. As a cherry on top, Atlanta has been much better away from home, and the Timberwolves have hardly regressed on the road. The only close games the Hawks have played in the last two weeks have come against the Chicago Bulls, whose defensive issues don’t need to be discussed, and the New York Knicks, who were experimenting with barely-used bench pieces in Mohamed Diawara and Kevin McCullar Jr. I can’t see Atlanta stopping the bleeding tonight, even with Porziņġis back.
