GETTING REAL
Top seed Hawks try to recapture form after sluggish ending
ATLANTA — The Atlanta Hawks spent the past month doing little more than warming up for the NBA playoffs. Now it’s time to get real again. After setting a franchise record for wins and claiming the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Hawks host Brooklyn on Sunday to open the playoffs.
Atlanta ( 60-22) goes in as an overwhelming favorite against the Nets (3844), a team that slipped into the playoffs on the final day and lost to the Hawks all four times during the regular season — only one of those games closer than 11 points.
Still, there were some troubling signs for Atlanta down the stretch.
After being relatively healthy much of the season, the Hawks sustained a rash of nagging injuries. All-Stars Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver were among those affected, as well as top reserves Mike Scott and Dennis Schroder.
More troubling, two players were arrested in New York during a bizarre incident that left backup forward Thabo Sefolosha with a season-ending leg injury, costing the team one of its best perimeter defenders.
The Hawks won just seven of their last 15 games, including a pair of threegame losing streaks that were their longest skids of the season.
Coach Mike Budenholzer took advantage of the team’s big lead in the standings, going with a philosophy that worked so well while he was an assistant in San Antonio. He frequently rested his starters or limited their minutes, in hopes of keeping them fresh for the playoffs.
While playing for Phoenix, TNT analyst Charles Barkley remembers the Suns doing the same thing toward the end of the 1993 season after they locked up the best record in the league. They lost five of their last eight regular-season games — and were nearly upset in the opening round of the playoffs by the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Lakers. After losing the first two games at home, Phoenix rallied to win the best-of-five series, with the deciding game going to overtime. The Suns also had a tough time with San Antonio and Seattle before losing to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the finals.
“There is some concern with that,” Barkley said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that if we had not taken the last week to 10 days off, we would not have lost the first two games at home to the Lakers.”