The Atlanta Hawks saw their season end with a thud Tuesday night, getting waxed by the Cleveland Cavaliers by 30 points as they were swept out of the Eastern Conference Finals and ingloriously sent into their offseason.
It was a result that seemed to back up the biggest doubts about this Hawks team ever since they went on a 21-game winning streak during the first half of the regular season – namely that a team without a superstar is incapable of being a true contender in the NBA.
But did it really prove that? Or did the Hawks, for a variety of reasons, just not play as well as they were capable of over these past six weeks, up to and including their demise at the hands of the Cavaliers, who in LeBron James have the ultimate example of the superstar the Hawks lack?
Atlanta never played as well over the past three months as it did during the first half of the season, when the Hawks generated a significant cushion by the time the All-Star Break came around. They held a 6 1/2 game lead over the Raptors at that point, and a 10 1/2 game lead over the Cavs, and the Hawks spent the final two months of the regular season doing everything they could to stay healthy when the postseason finally arrived while cruising to an East-leading 60 wins.
The injury-prevention plan did not work, however. Mike Scott suffered a broken toe in March, and struggled mightily after returning just before the postseason. Paul Millsap had a freak collision with Earl Clark in a blowout win over the Nets two weeks before the playoffs began, injuring his right shoulder in the process, and he was never quite the same. Thabo Sefolosha had his leg broken during an incident with police officers here in New York a few days later, and missed the entire playoffs, depriving the Hawks of a key bench shooter and defender, and the player on their roster with the most playoff experience.
Al Horford suffered a dislocated pinkie finger during the opening game of the Nets’ series, and took some time to get right – and that was all before DeMarre Carroll injured his knee and Kyle Korver injured his ankle during the Cavaliers series.
The Hawks were always a team that, when they were at their best, had everyone playing at a high level. Other than Game 6 of their first round series win over the Nets, when Atlanta finally blew out a Brooklyn team that had gamely hung with them to that point despite finishing the regular season with a sub .500 record, we never saw the Hawks play at that level in these playoffs.
They also weren’t helped by some questionable coaching decisions by Mike Budenholzer. While Budenholzer was a deserving winner of this season’s Coach of the Year award – even though the vote here went to Steve Kerr– he made some odd choices during these playoffs.
The biggest one was his outright refusal to play his starters more minutes throughout virtually their entire playoff run. Budenholzer, and by extension his players, are all firm believers in the system the Hawks have created in Atlanta: that everyone has a part to play, that no one is bigger than the team, that the way to win is by sharing the ball and finding the open man and playing nine or 10 guys to keep minutes down.
But you have to be willing to move away from that philosophy once you reach the postseason – and especially when you have a starting five like the one the Hawks have. While Atlanta may not have a superstar, they undoubtedly have a star in Al Horford and the NBA’s second best shooter in Kyle Korver (and is the only player who is anywhere near Stephen Curry in that department). The combination of those two, Jeff Teague, Carroll and Millsap had an absurd plus 14.3 points per 100 possessions in the 14 games it was available to Atlanta during these playoffs. Instead of leaning heavily on that starting five, however, Budenholzer kept going back to a bench unit that failed him time and time again, leaning particularly hard on Dennis Schroder, who while promising during the regular season in his second NBA season, was particularly awful almost all the time during these playoffs.
All of these issues, however, bring us back to the fundamental question about these Hawks: what is their ceiling? Are they, if they bring back both Carroll and Millsap in free agency this summer, a true title contender next season, as a normal returning 60-win team with a core group of players all in their prime normally would be? Or is this nothing more than a nice regular season story that proved to be more fantasy than reality once the postseason arrived?
It’s a difficult question to answer, mainly because the Hawks gave us so few reasons to believe in them with their performance this postseason. They struggled mightily with the Nets for five games, then got by the Wizards thanks to multiple bounces that went in their favor – John Wall’s injury, Schroder’s awful potential game-winning shot in Game 5 going right to Horford for a putback at the buzzer, Paul Pierce’s game-tying shot in Game 6 being a fraction of a second late – before being destroyed by the Cavaliers.
While it happens about as often as a solar eclipse, the Hawks have no one with the capability of having a performance like the one Deron Williams did in Game 4 of that first round series, when he scored 35 points and at least for one night looked like a top-10 player in the league again. And the Hawks certainly didn’t have anyone capable of going toe-to-toe with James, who almost averaged a triple-double in the series and was simply spectacular even while struggling with his outside shot.
But the combination of the injuries the Hawks dealt with during these playoffs, combined with what they showed during the regular season, should be enough for management to give this team another chance, particularly given how weak the rest of the Eastern Conference is. And don’t think for a second the team being sold won’t factor into this; having a new regime’s first move be to let either Millsap or Carroll walk wouldn’t exactly scream inspiration to an already skeptical fan base.
Yes, the Cavaliers are going to be there – and regardless of the future of Kevin Love, the combination of James and Kyrie Irving with the collection of players around them will make them formidable for years to come – as will the Wizards, who should keep getting better as Wall and Bradley Beal mature as players.
But look at the rest of the conference. The entire Atlantic Division is a mess. The Bulls, despite their talent, have plenty of question marks – beginning with how this team will respond to the seemingly guaranteed departure of Tom Thibodeau and the health of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah. The Heat have talent, but have depth and injury issues. No one is quite sure what direction the Pacers will go in this summer.
There’s no reason not to give this another run and see if, with a couple additions to the bench and a little better health luck, the Hawks next season could have a much different level of success.
These Hawks may not have proven their formula can work in the playoffs, but they showed enough that, at the very least, they deserve another chance to do so.