Sam Mitchell insists nothing has changed for Hawthorn after they hammered down the door to the AFL top eight with a 74-point humiliation of injury-ravaged Carlton.
The Blues lost star forward Charlie Curnow among a raft of setbacks as the "Showtime Hawks" lived up to their billing by running rings around their undermanned opponents in a 16.16 (112) to 5.8 (38) victory in front of 84,773 fans at the MCG.
Hawthorn took control of Sunday's contest with five unanswered goals in the second quarter and went into party mode after half-time, handing Carlton their heaviest defeat under Michael Voss.
In so doing, the Hawks overhauled a gap of eight percentage points on their opponents and climbed into the top eight for the first time this year - at the Blues' expense.
After starting the season 0-5, Hawthorn are now in the box seat to play finals with games against bottom two sides Richmond and North Melbourne to finish the home-and-away campaign.
But third-year coach Mitchell is taking nothing for granted.
"We're not there yet," he said.
"For us every game is a final and every game has been a final for probably six weeks.
"We knew we might be able to miss one game out of that, but we did that already when we lost last week.
"If we lose again we're finished. That's our attitude right now."
The banged-up Blues have lost five of their past six games to slide to ninth and are sweating on the result of scans on Curnow's damaged left ankle.
Adam Saad (hamstring), Jack Martin (hamstring) and Lachie Fogarty (collarbone) also failed to finish Sunday's game, while Jordan Boyd (adductor) was injured but battled on.
Curnow went into the match nursing an ankle complaint and lasted just two minutes into the second half before crumbling to the turf.
The two-time Coleman Medal winner had to be helped off the field and wasn't seen again as Hawthorn ran away with a convincing win.
Massimo D'Ambrosio (31 disposals), Dylan Moore (29), James Worpel (25) and Conor Nash (25) ran riot through the midfield and captain James Sicily (30) shone as the leader of a watertight defence.
Calsher Dear, Josh Weddle and Jack Gunston kicked three goals each, while Jack Ginnivan and substitute Luke Breust added two apiece.
Mitchell was thrilled with the Hawks' defensive consistency and pressure but was left wanting more ruthlessness from his side.
"There were a couple of phases in the game when Carlton were trying to slow it down and we started to slow it down too," he said.
"We talk a lot about controlling the narrative of the game and we didn't do that as well as we would've liked early on."
Carlton midfielders Matt Kennedy (33 disposals, six clearances) and Patrick Cripps (25, eight) fought against the tide as their side's best contributors, but the Blues were soundly beaten.
"It was an extremely disappointing day on a lot of fronts and it's not the standard that we're about as a club," Carlton coach Michael Voss said.