Hawks’ season has turned into nightmare

Baltimore (New York); 1971; East

Chicago (New York); 1993; East

Cleveland (Detroit); 2007; East

Oklahoma City (San Antonio); 2012; West

The Hawks’ dream season has turned into a nightmare.

After a 60-win regular season and the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Hawks are in trouble.

Big trouble.

The Hawks were soundly defeated by the Cavaliers 94-82 in Game 2 of the conference finals Friday night at Philips Arena. They trail the series 2-0 with Games 3 and 4 in Cleveland.

Teams up 2-0 in best-of-seven series in the NBA playoffs win 94 percent of the time. Only four teams have come back from such deficits in the conference finals — Baltimore in 1971, Chicago in 1993, Cleveland in 2007 and Oklahoma City in 2012. None of those teams lost the first two at home.

“We have a group of guys here who have fought all year,” Al Horford said. “We’ve dealt with adversity in many different ways. This is just another challenge for us. We have to focus on Game 3. Our backs are against the wall.”

Are they ever.

The last team to win a series after losing the first two games at home was Dallas, which defeated Houston in the first round in 2005.

LeBron James dominated the Hawks with a near triple-double. He had a game-high 30 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds. Eight of James’ first nine assists were on 3-pointers. Tristan Thompson had seven points, but 16 rebounds, and Iman Shumpert scored 16 points, including four 3-pointers.

Dennis Schroder scored 13 points for the Hawks. Horford, Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague each scored 12 points. Paul Millsap finished with only four points, on 2-of-8 shooting.

DeMarre Carroll made a remarkable recovery from a left knee sprain suffered in Game 1 and started at small forward, giving the Hawks a needed defensive presence on James. Carroll had a large ice wrap on his team when on the bench. He finished with six points in 36 minutes. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers played without All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving, who saw doctors for knee tendinitis.

“They told me it can’t get any worse, so I went out there and tried to help my team win,” Carroll said. “It didn’t happen. I wouldn’t turn this opportunity down for the world. I would have went out there on one leg because at the end of the day, it’s about the team. It’s not about myself. We worked too hard just to give up.”

The Hawks lost Korver to a right ankle sprain in the third quarter, and he was unable to return. Horford also was hobbled after banging his knee in the fourth quarter.

The Cavaliers started the third quarter on a 24-9 run to take a 20-point lead, 78-58. The Hawks were outscored 30-17 in the decisive period, and the Cavaliers cruised to victory and a comfortable series lead.

This Hawks team is not playing on offense the way it did during the regular season.

“The biggest thing for us is we have to know who we are,” Horford said. “We have to move the ball. There is now way around it. If we don’t do that, we don’t have a chance. It’s not happening as it should be, every time.”

The Cavaliers led by as many as 10 points in the second quarter and took a 54-49 lead into halftime. They used an 18-6 run between the first and second quarters to take a 33-23 lead. James had 17 first-half points, 13 in the first quarter.

The Hawks got physical in the first quarter — and James was the target. Pero Antic was called for a Flagrant-1 foul for shoving James on a layup attempt. Later in the quarter, Kent Bazemore gave Jones a shove after a foul call. The Hawks overcame a 2-for-10 start from the field, and Horford didn’t have a shot until 16 minutes into the game.

“We’ve got to be a lot better offensively,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “There are few different areas we need to improve in. That will be important for us to be better offensively between now and Game 3.”

The task ahead is daunting.

“We’ve just got to get back to what we do,” Bazemore said. “I still think we are the better team. We just haven’t shown it yet. There is a lot of basketball left.”