Not even two months ago, the Atlanta Hawks were 27-31.

They had traded away cornerstone scorer Trae Young and star center Kristaps Porzingis in a matter of weeks.

Nobody was thinking about the playoffs for this rebuilding bunch.

Not outside of the Hawks’ facility, anyway.

But then something unexpected happened. The Hawks, with a young and versatile core finally getting its chance to shine, started winning.

And winning and winning and winning.

And now, the resurgent, sixth-seeded Hawks are standing in the way of the third-seeded, championship-hopeful Knicks in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

“They’re good at adjustments, clearly, being able to have a pretty big trade midseason and then adjust to being the team they are now,” Knicks star Jalen Brunson said ahead of Saturday night’s Game 1 at Madison Square Garden.

“They’ve been playing great, and we’ve got to be ready for the challenge.”

Atlanta finished the regular season with 19 wins in its last 24 games, resulting in a 46-36 record and the final guaranteed playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

The driving force was a breakout season by forward Jalen Johnson, a first-time All-Star who averaged 22.5 points, 10.3 rebounds and 7.9 assists per game.

But the Hawks’ turnaround was about much more than one player.

Without the ball-stopping, score-first Young, the Hawks’ offense became more fluid and their defense became stingier.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a 27-year-old on his fourth NBA team, took advantage of being a featured player for the first time, averaging 20.8 points per game and shooting 39.9% on 3-pointers.

C.J. McCollum, a 34-year-old veteran whose expiring contract helped facilitate the Young trade, averaged 18.7 points per game for Atlanta.

Dyson Daniels, the defensive ace who will be tasked with guarding Brunson in this series, remains among the NBA’s best on that end.

“When all the trades were finalized, and we had our whole team and we knew what our team was going to be moving forward for the rest of the year, I think that’s when we grew together,” Johnson said ahead of Game 1.

“It wasn’t the prettiest at first, and we figured things out. Everybody came in just wanting to learn one another.”

Before the mid-February All-Star break, the Hawks ranked 17th in defensive rating (114.9) and 25th in opponent scoring (118.6 points per game).

But since the All-Star break, the Hawks rank second in defensive rating (108.6) and ninth in opponent scoring (110.5 points per game).

Part of that is because the Hawks played a light schedule during their turnaround.

But the Hawks’ passing of the torch to an athletic group brimming with potential — Johnson, Alexander-Walker, Daniels, Onyeka Okongwu and Jonathan Kuminga were all relatively recent top-20 draft picks — has made them a more well-rounded and dangerous team.

“They get out in transition just as good as any team, if not the best,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said.

“Their athleticism. Their length. They’re very aggressive on the offensive glass. Their size and athleticism allows them to switch when they want to defensively and try to do some things defensively, because of their versatility.”

Young, now of the Washington Wizards, became a villain to New York sports fans when he led the Hawks to a first-round victory over the Knicks in 2021 — a five-game series in which he averaged 29.2 points per game.

Expect this year’s Hawks to approach things differently.

“We’re really grateful to have this opportunity,” Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said. “We’ve earned it. And we want to embrace it collectively. When you approach it that way, I think it takes the pressure off any one player.”

But that doesn’t mean underdog Atlanta should be taken lightly.

“I feel like we’ll be a problem for anybody,” Johnson said.