The Hawks have been planning for the playoffs for months, but there’s no way to know if the planning was sagacious until the ball is tipped in Game 1. You can rest guys and risk them getting rusty, or you can play guys and risk them getting hurt, or you can do both, which is what Mike Budenholzer has done, and maybe it’ll matter. Maybe it won’t.
The Hawks are 60-21 after dropping Monday’s scrimmage with the Knicks, in which the home side spent a half unsure whether it was supposed to be trying. The Hawks wound up losing 112-108 to a 17-win opponent, which mightn’t be a bad thing. As Budenholzer said: “Sometimes it’s good to learn from what you can’t do.”
The East’s No. 1 seed won’t come out for Game 1 of the playoffs and guard nobody, as happened Monday. There’ll be too much at stake. There was nothing in Game No. 81 of 82, and it showed. No big deal.
So: Are the Hawks ready? Said Budenholzer, an assistant for four of San Antonio’s five NBA titles since 1999: “I don’t think anybody ever knows. Everybody tries to build habits and understand what it takes to win in the playoffs. We’ve done a lot (to prepare), and it’s all building on what we did during the regular season.”
Over the course of 81 games, the Hawks have been no worse than the league’s second-best team. Still, we keep hearing/reading that this 60-win team won’t play half as well in May, to say nothing of June. The Associated Press asked its four NBA writers to predict the league finalists: All four picked Cleveland to take the East.
The data-based site FiveThirtyEight places the Hawks fifth in its power ratings — up from ninth a week ago — and second (behind LeBron’s Cavaliers) in the East. Marc Stein of ESPN also slots the Hawks fifth, also behind Cleveland, and notes: “There are loads of numbers … floating around to assert that the Hawks rank as one of the weakest 60-win teams ever.”
Knicks coach Derek Fisher, who played for five NBA champions, was asked if he saw anything that would keep the Hawks from winning in postseason. His response: “You don’t win 60 games by accident. We’ll just have to see. It doesn’t help that they lost my former teammate, Thabo Sefolosha. But they seem to have all the pieces you need.”
Those pieces haven’t been together much lately. Budenholzer has been sitting players here and there, and even with the games off five have gotten hurt. Sefolosha’s leg was broken while being arrested; he’s lost for the duration. Subs Mike Scott and Dennis Schroder stubbed their toes. Kyle Korver broke his nose. Paul Millsap strained his shoulder. Only Millsap hasn’t yet returned, and he mightn’t play again until Game 1.
“I think it’s just important to have (Millsap) healthy,” Budenzholzer said, as opposed to forcing him into one of the remaining regular-season games. That made sense, especially to us Atlantans.
When last a local team carried a No. 1 seed into the playoffs, the 2012 Falcons were lessened by the injury suffered by John Abraham, their one and only pass rusher, in the inessential regular-season finale against Tampa Bay. (Of all the strange things Mike Smith did, his insistence on trying to win that day was the strangest.)
From his San Antonio prep-for-postseason days, could Budenholzer identify an indicator of playoff success (or failure)? “You always want to have confidence on the defensive end, that you can get stops.”
Monday’s game aside, the Hawks should have that faith: They’re fourth in the NBA in points allowed, fifth in field-goal percentage defense, sixth in defensive efficiency. They also have reason to know that the playoffs can be different.
A year ago, they were the No. 8 seed to Indiana’s No. 1, and they should have won the series in six games. (They lost in seven.) They could well play the Pacers again, with the seeds flipped. “I know how much confidence and belief we have,” Budenholzer said, “but whoever we play will have just as much confidence and belief.”
Perhaps. But nobody else in the East has this starting five. Nobody else has Schroder. Nobody else has Budenholzer. This team should make the NBA Finals.
