The Hawks are a great story regardless of outcome
The Atlanta Hawks are the top seed in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. Nobody believes they can reach the NBA Finals.
Atlanta, which had a tremendous regular season with a record of 60-22, earned home-court advantage throughout the Eastern playoffs. The Hawks are a good defensive team and a terrific offensive powerhouse, but are heavy underdogs against LeBron James and the second-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers. Even with Kevin Love out and Kyrie Irving hobbled with an ankle injury, Cleveland is still being picked by most pundits to roll in five games or less.
The Hawks are the typical NBA team which makes the playoffs and gets ushered out because they are without a superstar. There is nobody who rivals a player like James, or Kevin Durant, or Russell Westbrook, or Anthony Davis. The biggest star on Atlanta is Al Horford, who while a very good player is not on a first-class flight to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Atlanta is a collection of good players, giving the appearance of an overachiever. In reality, the Hawks are a damn good team built in a non-traditional way. They are full of shooters and slashers, led by Kyle Korver, Jeff Teague and Dennis Schroder. The frontcourt boosts Horford and Paul Millsap, two of the better interior players in the league today.
Yet, Cleveland is justifiably the favorite because as the old truth goes in basketball, the team with the best player wins. In football, baseball and hockey, it tends to be that the best roster wins. The deepest roster wins. In basketball, star power rules the day. Unquestionably, the Cavaliers have the best player in James. If Irving is even remotely healthy, he’s the second-best player.
Some basketball purists would love to see Atlanta win and move onto the Finals. The Hawks are a throwback to a team that doesn’t simply isolate its best player all the time, clearing out to let the star create off the dribble. The offense is run in a similar fashion to the San Antonio Spurs. It’s all about spreading the floor, slashing and kicking, seeing the whole chess board. None of this is surprising, considering head coach Mike Budenholzer is from the Spurs’ system.
Over at Vegas Insiders, Atlanta has the worst odds of the four teams remaining to win the NBA Finals with 13/1 odds. The Golden State Warriors are the favorite at 1/2, with the Cavaliers coming in second at 14/5 and the Houston Rockets third at 10/1.
Give Atlanta credit, regardless of what happens in the Eastern Conference finals. This is a young team that has already won two rounds in the playoffs, showing it will be a force both in the present and future. If the Hawks could actually pull the stunning upset and win the East, it would be a crowning achievement for this franchise, one that hasn’t even been this far since 1970.
