Hawks vs. Timberwolves prediction and odds for Wednesday, March 22

The Atlanta Hawks took a big swing midseason hiring Quin Snyder as their new head coach and through 11 games, it’s been unremarkable.

The Hawks are a pedestrian 5-6 in his time at the helm and now will get a chance to pull themselves up to .500 with their new coach and over .500 on the season against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Hawks are eighth in the East at 36-36 and the Wolves are ninth in the West at 36-37.

The good news for Minnesota is that Karl Anthony-Towns is returning after missing 51 straight games with a calf strain tonight, but they might not have their full complement because Anthony Edwards is questionable.

Hawks vs. Timberwolves odds, spread and total

Hawks vs. Timberwolves prediction and pick

In these last 11 games with Snyder, Atlanta really isn’t much different than they were. The Hawks are still a bad defensive team, in fact even worse at 26th in the league through their last 11, with a defensive rating of 118.5. They are decent on offense, as any team with Trae Young will be with a 118.9 offensive rating, good for fifth in the NBA for that stretch. Yet, a slightly positive net rating hasn’t yielded a positive record.

In March, Young is averaging 25.2 points a game slightly down from his season average and his usage rate is 30.7%, slightly down from his season average of 31.8%.

Many are expecting Snyder to force Young to get the ball out of his hands more often and play more efficiently on offense, but that isn’t really the case so far. He has a true shooting percentage of 59.5% which is slightly up from 57.3 for the year. So, slowly but surely Snyder’s system is getting implemented in Atlanta.

However, the Hawks just beat the Pistons yesterday and are 3-6-1 against the spread with no days rest.

I can’t back the Hawks, but I can trust another trend considering how effective they’ve been on offense and how bad they’ve been on defense. Their opponents are getting a player that is good on offense and bad on defense back tonight, and in their last six games the over is 5-1.

I’ll take the over tonight and ride that trend.

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change