Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
Kevin Huerter Writes Letter to Atlanta Hawks Fans
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Let's be honest. This season has not been what the Atlanta Hawks organization and its fans had anticipated after last year's appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals. Since October, it's been one step forward and two steps back.
After two must-win games in the Play-In Tournament, the Hawks dropped their first two games against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. Now, as the series shifts to Atlanta, Hawks shooting guard wanted to set the record straight by penning a letter to fans.
In Huerter's letter titled 'Let's Come Out Fighting' published in The Players' Tribune, the 23-year-old acknowledged the team's shortcomings this season, accepted accountability, and posited his mentality going forward.
"Just look at how the regular season went for us. It wasn’t the best start, and it wasn’t the best finish either. We struggled a lot with finding our rhythm. And we had to fight just to get into the play-in, as the 9 seed, to have a chance to even make the playoffs. Obviously, that’s not the situation you want to be putting yourself in, and that’s not where we expected to be back in October. We just weren’t playing well in so many different ways, to be honest. Missing shots, defensively we weren’t as active as we were late last season, some injuries piled up … there were a lot of things we needed to fix." - Kevin Huerter in The Players' Tribune
The overall message of the letter was that the team would fight hard against the 1-seed Miami Heat. Fight is the keyword. Since the series began, the Heat have tried bullying the Hawks, which resulted in Trae Young calling out their antics and De'Andre Hunter getting into a skirmish with Kyle Lowry.
Game Three is at 7:00 PM (eastern) in State Farm Arena on Friday night. It's not the biggest came of these guys' careers, but it's certainly the most important of this season. As always, we will have you covered for gameday content all Sports Illustrated's AllHawks.com.
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