Meet the Opponent: Pivotal Hawks-Magic Season Series Tips Monday

ORLANDO, Fla. — Game 55 of the Orlando Magic's regular season is the first of four meetings with a division rival that are loaded with postseason implications.

The Atlanta Hawks, one of only two teams in the NBA that Orlando has yet to play this season, visit the Magic on Monday night. A half-game separates the Southeast division foes in the current Eastern Conference play-in standings.

Orlando, 26-28, is eighth. Atlanta, 25-28, is ninth. At the moment, that's the difference between needing to win only one game to make the playoffs versus two. The winner of the No. 7-No. 8 game will face the East's two-seed, while the winner of No. 9-No. 10 gets the loser of the 7-8 game.

Entering Monday, Orlando is 1.5 games behind Detroit for sixth place and one behind Miami in seventh.

Beyond head-to-head record, division winners have an advantage in playoff seeding tiebreaker scenarios.

If two teams from differing divisions finish the regular season with the same record and the head-to-head series is split, one team then takes precedent if it is a division leader. If both teams are or are not division winners, it then goes to division win-loss record and conference win-loss record after that.

Before they tip Monday, Orlando is 5-2 in the Southeast and 20-15 versus the East this year. Atlanta is also 5-2 in-division and is 18-13 against the East.

Thus, all four matchups with the Hawks — Monday night, Feb. 20, April 8 and April 13 — plus the Magic's two remaining games with 13-37 Charlotte and 9-43 Washington, are important to Orlando's postseason prospects.

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About the Hawks

Leading Scorers [active]

Trae Young: 23.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, 11.4 assists
Dyson Daniels: 13.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.9 steals
Onyeka Okongwu: 12.0 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.0 assists
Zaccharie Risacher: 11.3 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.2 assists

Head Coach

Quin Snyder, Atlanta Hawks: Snyder has been on NBA benches for 15 seasons. This is his third season in Atlanta after spending eight leading Utah. Snyder was runner-up for NBA coach of the year in 2017-18 with the Jazz.

Notable Numbers

116.2 points/game (9th)
-2.6 point differential
34.8 3PT% (24th)
15.2 stocks/game (steals + blocks)
110.9 offensive rating (23rd)
113.3 defensive rating (13th)
104.23 pace (2nd-quickest)
54.0 points in the paint/game (3rd)

Additions

Georges Niang, Caris LeVert: Deadline acquisitions from Cleveland, along with three second-round picks and two pick swaps, for De'Andre Hunter.

Hunter, who was averaging 19.0 points through 37 games off of Atlanta's bench this season, was the Cavaliers' win-now addition to their core four of Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. The Caves have been the East's best team this season.

Niang and LeVert add wing depth, allowing the Hawks to remain in play-In contention and a potential push for a top-6 playoff spot.

Terance Mann was also acquired at the deadline, shipping Bogdan Bogdanovic to the LA Clippers.

Zaccharie Risacher was the No. 1 overall pick in last summer's NBA Draft. He's heading to All-Star Weekend to participate in the Rising Stars event.

Subtractions

Atlanta pulled the plug on the Trae Young-Dejounte Murray backcourt pairing last offseason, dealing Murray to the New Orleans Pelicans for two first-round picks and a player package that included Dyson Daniels, otherwise known as The Great Barrier Thief for his propensity to generate havoc in offense's backcourts with steals and deflections.

Storylines

Jalen Johnson, who was averaging a near 19-point, 10-rebound double-double in his fourth NBA season, suffered a torn labrum that required surgery in his left shoulder at the end of January. Atlanta is 7-11 in 18 games without him, including losing six of their past nine games.

Second-year guard Kobe Bufkin is also out for the season with a shoulder injury. He appeared in just 10 games for Atlanta this year.

The Hawks have won three of their last four games, after losing eight in a row. They went from three games above .500 to five games below.

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