Despite Being Overmatched, Hawks Can Still Show They’re the NBA’s Best Young Team

I take back what I said about Atlanta looking respectable in Game One’s utter gouging. That was just the Cavs shaking off rust. After last night, it’s safe to say that this series is going to be recorded for posterity in invisible ink. Off the top, I’d include in this either of the two times the Nets made the Finals, or the Spurs/Cavs Finals of a few years back. These are showdowns where even die-hards like myself struggle to watch without changing the channel. And here, I don’t just mean NBA die-hards; I’m speaking as someone who has been enjoying the Hawks since they were 18 small forwards and a dream, and nearly cried when they won those games against the Celtics.↵
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↵But this isn’t entirely the Hawks’ fault. Joe Johnson has gone from bad (shut down) to hobbled (leaving in a wheel chair to get x-rays). Al Horford’s day-to-day. Marvin Williams still isn’t entirely recovered from a season of maladies. So basically, that puts the whole team on Josh Smith’s shoulders, which -- for all his gifts -- is never a sound strategy.↵↵I’m sure that the next contest will feature scores of cheering ATL-iens, and a team showing a new fire in their eyes. But for real, who is going to take the floor? Is “hey, at least it didn’t turn out like Game Two” a compelling carrot to dangle in front of fans? I guess Willis Reed moments are great for morale, initially, but the chances of a full, healthy Hawks team taking the floor appears slim. And that’s what it will take to at least make this series watch-able again.↵
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↵This is in no way a knock on the Hawks. They continued their progress, got home-court advantage, and are now racked with injuries. They also have had the bad fortune to fall into a fine-tuned killing machine of a team that makes last year’s Celtics look like hard-nosed college dreamers. If there is a moral victory left here for Atlanta, it would be not to take a serious jab at the Cavs -- that’s not going to end well-- but for the team to make the most of this national exposure by, once again, reminding the wider NBA audience that they have every bit as much right as the Blazers do to be coddled as a “rising young team.” I know in Portland, they already want a championship, but be cool with the award for Best Child Actor. The Hawks need to just show up, almost as if in a vacuum, and secure that for themselves in the East even if they’re totally overmatched. ↵

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