The last time the Hawks entered the playoffs as a No. 8 seed, it nonetheless was viewed as such a momentous occasion that coach Mike Woodson felt compelled to fulfill a promise and shave his head. We’ll never know if it was the result of some otherworldly spiritual energy emanating from Woodson’s globey head, but the 37-45 Hawks proceeded to stretch the 66-16 (and eventual league champion) Boston Celtics to a seven-game series, nearly pulling off one of the greatest upsets in NBA history.
So. Mike Budenholzer …
“No,” he said. “I have no plans to shave my head. I get enough flak about how big my forehead is.”
The Hawks are in the NBA playoffs. Shouting that from rooftops seems necessary in their home base because they’ve been relatively off the radar for months. It’s unfortunate because the Hawks have been one of the league’s more interesting stories, even with the fluctuating plot.
It’s Year 2 for general manager Danny Ferry and Year 1 for Budenholzer as coach. If there’s one player on the roster considered a certain piece for the future, it’s the one who’s been injured since December (Al Horford). Imagine living in a motor home while your house is being built. The Hawks are the motor home in this exercise, the San Antonio Spurs replica the fantasy blueprint.
But the Hawks haven’t been an easy out, and they don’t project as an easy out in this first-round series against Indiana. Against all dire projections after Horford’s exit, they kept winning games, as Budenholzer fought to help set a standard and create an identity. They lost other players, but kept hanging around the playoff race.
Eventually, the bottom fell out, or at least seemed to: eight consecutive losses and 14 in a stretch of 15 games dropped the Hawks out of the No. 8 seed and behind the New York Knicks with two weeks left in the season. But they closed with a 7-1 kick to make the playoffs.
The Hawks predominantly are viewed as a postseason afterthought. It happens when a team with the postseason field’s worst record of 38-44 — the Hawks’ record actually ranked 18th overall, behind even two non-playoff teams in the West — faces one that finished 56-26. Analysts see the Hawks’ recent 19-point win in Indianapolis and their split of the four-game season series as aberration.
“That’s even better,” center Pero Antic said. “We don’t have anything to lose. We just have to show the people that we can play good basketball, team basketball, that we have fun playing together and we can compete throughout the series.”
“We use (the doubts) for motivation,” Elton Brand said. “No one gives a chance. No one gave us a chance the entire season, or at the end. We were losing. We were reeling. But we wanted that playoff slot.”
The Hawks remind me of a conversation I had in Las Vegas with late boxing trainer Emmanuel Steward following the weigh-in for the first Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson fight. Tyson was an overwhelming favorite, but Steward was balking at placing a wager on the bout.
“Evander’s not a guy you ever bet against and feel comfortable,” he said.
The Hawks don’t scare anybody in April. But they didn’t scare anybody in December or January or March. What they do, they do well: play hard, share the ball, get in your face on defense and find improbable ways to survive.
They obviously have limitations. But Antic poses matchup problems for the Pacers because he’s a big man who can shoot from the outside, which forces the 7-2 Roy Hibbert to leave his relative sanctuary in the paint. Antic averaged 17 points on 72 percent shooting in two games against Indiana, 6.6 points on 40 percent shooting against everybody else.
Players and coaches normally don’t like to give away strategy, but this element is so obvious that Antic didn’t even try to hide it: “Hibbert is used to playing against bigger centers who like to play inside, so I’m going to try to keep him outside as much as possible.”
The Pacers started this season 25-5. They didn’t hit double-digits in losses until they had won 35. But they were wobbly down the stretch, going 10-13, including a 107-88 home loss to the Hawks (trailing 55-23 at halftime).
They started show some chemistry problems before the trade deadline. Then a trade that sent Danny Granger to Philadelphia for Evan Turner appeared to backfire. Some have wondered if coach Frank Vogel has lost the locker room. Hibbert called out teammates. Indy suddenly doesn’t project as a team that can knock off Miami.
That’s not the Hawks’ problem.
Brand was part of a Philadelphia team that upset No. 1-seeded Chicago two years ago (contributing factor: Derrick Rose was injured in Game 1).
“The mindset is that even though it’s No. 1 vs. No. 8, we’ve played pretty good against them for stretches,” Brand said. “So we have confidence.”
Enough to probably make Indiana feel uncomfortable.
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