Hawks’ Trae Young Has ‘Confidence’ vs. Celtics: ‘We Beat the No. 1 Seed Before’ | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

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Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks are no strangers to an improbable playoff run.

And they’ll be hoping for another one as they prepare for a first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics, one of the titans of the Eastern Conference this season.

Despite entering the series as the No. 7 seed and a big underdog, Young has some confidence from his run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2021 when Atlanta was the No. 5 seed.

That year the Hawks took down the Knicks and the No. 1-seeded Philadelphia 76ers en route to the conference finals where they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks—the eventual NBA champions—in six games.

“We have really good players, we can play at a high level, and it’s a series,” Young said. “We beat the No. 1 seed before. I have confidence in my teammates, and I have confidence in myself that we can go out and do anything.”

A lot has changed, for both the Hawks and the Eastern Conference as whole, since that unlikely run. The conference has gotten much better with the Bucks, Celtics, 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers all potential contenders to make the Finals.

Despite arguably having a better roster than it had in 2020-21, Atlanta has gotten worse since then, going 41-41 this season. The team added All-Star Dejounte Murray, Saddiq Bey and will have a healthy De’Andre Hunter for the postseason, which will be a huge boost.

It also has a new coach in Quin Snyder, who replaced Nate McMillan on Feb. 26.

The Hawks started off the postseason in strong fashion after beating the Miami Heat in the play-in tournament, a team that was in the Eastern Conference Finals just a year ago.

They will now have their hands full with a Boston team that has All-Star talents like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and are one of the deeper teams in the conference.