The Hawks had the second-best record in the NBA this season for the same reasons any team plays well during a season: 1) The way they were built; 2) the way they were coached.
We can debate whether it's Danny Ferry or Mike Budenholzer or an Atlanta market correction of voodoo that's most responsible for what's going on with this franchise. But when a team wins 60 games, there is enough credit to go around, even if the general manager is a ghost.
But from this point on, it’s about players and coaching. It’s about emotions and adjustments and understanding the realization that neither a win nor a loss in one game should suggest in any way what’s going to happen in the next game. The point man for all of that is Budenholzer.
He was the best coach in the NBA this season. If he doesn’t win coach-of-the-year honors, it will be because of some malfunction in vote-counting software or mutation in the craniums of the voters themselves. He took basically the same team from 38-44 in one season to 60-22 the next. Checkmate.
The overriding question with the Hawks is whether they can replicate their regular-season success in the playoffs, which for them begin Sunday against Brooklyn. That's understandable. But it somewhat diminishes what happened a year ago in the first round against Indiana, when, as a No. 8 seed and minus Al Horford, they nearly upset the No. 1-seeded Pacers before falling in seven games.
“When you look at last year, everybody was debating, ‘Was it better making the playoffs and having that experience or not making the playoffs and getting the lottery pick?’” Kyle Korver said. “But from a players’ standpoint, there’s no question what was better. I would take that experience from last year because there were things to build on. We were in a tough, physical series. We played a Game 7. You learn from those things.”
Budenholzer echoes that sentiment. He was still feeling his way as a first-year head coach last season and still learning about his team in the playoffs.
“Adjustments from game to game are pretty subtle,” he said. “But to have the players who understand the subtleties — I wasn’t sure as a group whether we would be able to do that against Indiana. We were still learning about each other to a certain degree. But all of the things we talk about played out in that series, until we just couldn’t quite get it done.”
He spent 19 years in San Antonio, the first two as video coordinator. He was there long enough to experience four championships, five Western Conference titles and 44 playoff series. Work that long for a successful organization, and for coach Gregg Popovich in particular, and you come to understand what works and what doesn’t.
“Practice is great, but there’s as much done in the film room with your players and your team as there is when you’re practicing,” Budenholzer said. “If you can communicate with them and find ways to get things accomplished between games, whether it’s after a hard loss or a tough win, that’s what’s key. ‘Pop’ and their players are pretty amazing in the film room. In the playoffs, when everything is magnified, it just becomes that much more more important. The ability to give players the visuals and communicate and teach — it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK, I get it.’”
Players praise Budenholzer for his consistency in terms of his approach, his emotions and attention to detail.
"The great thing about Bud is his level of intensity and will to win doesn't change," Paul Millsap said.
I know. There are doubts. This is Atlanta, city of squashed dreams. These are the Hawks, who began the season with off-court embarrassment. But they have overcome all of that, and this isn’t a team that has been prone to emotional ups and downs.
Fan and media skepticism isn't a secret, but players don't appear fazed by anything.
“It’s how you look at it,” Korver said. “Is it, ‘You get to prove yourself now’ or, ‘Can they prove themselves now?’ We have the mindset of, we get to prove ourselves. When Miami put their team together a few years ago, they were superstars and they had to prove themselves. We have an opportunity.”
This much is certain: They are following their coach.
