By Tuesday morning, four games into the Hawks playoff run, Barrington Williams' voice was hoarse and his speech broken by long, deep yawns. He was up until 1 a.m., screaming for the Hawks win over the Boston Celtics and cleaning up the fan shop inside Philips Arena.

"You heard nothing but Atlanta people cheering, saw nothing but green shirts walking," said Williams, a retail supervisor at the store. "Just like Georgia, worst to first. They're shocking the world."

Williams believes Atlanta's always been a basketball town; it just didn't have a team to rally around. Two wins into the playoffs, the shop is finally selling more Hawks gear than Thrashers. They ran out of mini basketballs and 500 playoff T-shirts. Uniform jackets and satin coats are starting to go, too.

They avoided large orders to prevent overstock like the rack of NHL All-Star game jerseys left hanging.

Now they're praying a fresh shipment of T-shirts arrives. They'll need it to serve the Philips crowd on Friday.

A short, steady line formed at the arena ticket office by the time it opened at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Some left ticketless when they couldn't find what they wanted.

Not Antwan Banks. He watched games and scores for years from far away. Now that he's living back in Atlanta, he's buying playoff tickets to make up for lost time.

"Playoffs are always different," Banks said. "If you can't get excited about the playoffs, you can't get excited about anything."