If the Hawks had lost in the first round, a franchise-record 60-win regular season would have been for naught.
It was not.
If the Hawks had lost in the second round, accomplishments such as a 19-game win streak, four All-Star selections and a Coach of the Year award would have been merely nice mementos.
They will not.
There is still history to be written after the Hawks advanced to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time. They have gone where powerhouse teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s failed to reach. Supporters who have been disappointed time and again by past failures can — at least for a moment — lavish in success. This postseason run by the Hawks may have cemented all that all that went right in the hearts and minds of their fan base.
The No. 1-seed Hawks defeated Brooklyn and Washington in postseason series, the latest clincher coming with a dramatic 94-91 Game 6 win over the Wizards on Friday. The Hawks will open the conference finals against No. 2-seed Cleveland at home with Game 1 at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“It’s very big for the city of Atlanta,” DeMarre Carroll said. “This whole year Hawks fans came out and supported us from day one. To me they deserve a big huge shout-out. We wouldn’t even be here without our fans. At home when we were down by 10 against the Wizards (in Game 5), the fans helped us get back into the game. The fans deserve most of the credit and we will take secondary credit.”
It could have gone south in a hurry for this Hawks team. This season has been full of distractions. Racial remarks by the controlling owner resulted in the franchise being put up for sale. The general manager is on an indefinite leave of absence. Two players were arrested and one lost for the season as a result. The franchise is on the verge of changing hands, pending the approval of a new ownership group in the coming months.
Yet on the court, players, coaches and management have focused on the here and now. The past is the past — this year and decades before.
“We are making strides, and this is what we want to be doing, contending for championships,” Kyle Korver said. “Obviously getting to the conference championship is a huge step. We are going to enjoy this, and get ready for our next opponent.”
The Hawks needed six games each to eliminate Brooklyn and Washington, at times making people in and out of Philips Arena nervous wrecks. They have eight of the 16 wins necessary to win an NBA championship.
There have been moments in the past. The Hawks were in the Western Conference finals in 1969 and 1970, still just the second round. They have already accounted for more postseason wins in a single year in franchise history.
“As the season has unfolded and we’ve kind of felt the city a little bit more and we’ve felt some of their hopes and frustrations,” Korver said. “We’re definitely proud to do this for Atlanta. You want to come through for them. We want to keep on going and keep on getting better.”
No small task is facing that next opponent. LeBron James is the leader in Cleveland. He knows something about postseason success, having helped Miami to the previous four NBA Finals. The Hawks were 3-1 against Cleveland in the regular season. They are the hunted despite a lack of national attention for all that has gone right this season. They are the top seed.
“It’s a different position,” Al Horford said this week. “In the past we’ve usually been the lower seed. Now we are the top seed. You have to learn. A lot of times you are trying to attack that (higher seed) to make things happen. This year, I feel like, teams view us that way.”
