The Atlanta Hawks will try to win respect when they face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but on Thursday night in Boston, they won the right to think that their 2016 season was not a failure.
All team-sport professional athletes want to win the championship of their league, but anyone who puts on a team uniform for a living knows that world titles are elusive. Only one team can win each year, and in the NBA, it is a well-established pattern of history that teams ordinarily have to suffer before they break through.
The 1980s 76ers had to lose to the Celtics and Lakers before beating them and winning it all. Julius Erving did win the NBA championship, but he reached that unobstructed panoramic view only once.
The 1980s Lakers had to lose to the Celtics in 1984 before beating them in 1985 and 1987.
The 1980s Pistons had to lose to the Celtics in 1987 before beating them in 1988. They had to lose to the Lakers in 1988 before beating them in 1989 for the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The Chicago Bulls had to lose to the Pistons in 1989 and 1990 before beating them in 1991 and reaching the summit.
On and on the story goes. Championships are rare things unless you’re Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Magic, Kareem, Jordan, Tim Duncan, or some of the other players who found safe harbor in one of the NBA’s dynastic ports. Even then, those and other celebrated legends who have won three or more championships usually had to pay a price of some sort before lifting their first trophy. Russell and Magic — winners of titles in their rookie seasons — are the pronounced exceptions.
For the vast majority of athletes in the NBA or any other league, individual seasons must be viewed not in relationship to the attainment of a world championship, but relative to a process of growth and reasonable achievement.
The Atlanta Hawks — it can be safely said — have achieved at a level they can accept for this season.
Bazemore throws one down #ATLHawks https://t.co/FkyK52YXky
— The Comeback NBA (@TheComebackNBA) April 29, 2016
Yes, the Hawks are not done, and yes, they need to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Cavaliers if they want to avoid tasting the bitter herbs of humiliation, but even if things don’t work out against LeBron James and Company, Atlanta can still know it has attained a measure of staying power in the league, despite injuries and roster movements.
That’s no small thing.
Defeating the Boston Celtics, 4-2, in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs wasn’t valuable or revealing in terms of the enormity of the feat. The significance of this series win is that affirmed the Hawks as a resilient team which can absorb great disappointments in a thoroughly professional manner.
As soon as Boston’s Avery Bradley got hurt in Game 1, the ground of this series shifted to the Hawks. What seemed like a 50-50 series became a battle Atlanta figured to win… and therefore needed to win.
Jae Crowder — such a central sparkplug for the Celtics before his injury — was never the same player after he returned to the lineup on March 31. As long as Crowder was ineffective, the Bradley injury — combined with an injury to Kelly Olynyk — diminished the Celtics’ capacities to a point where Atlanta unquestionably should have been able to advance.
Yet, after the Game 4 loss made possible by Jeff Teague’s disastrous possession at the end of regulation, the Hawks faced a 2-2 series and a prolonged fight. They fell behind early in Game 5, 29-19, and decades of playoff frustrations swept through the minds of Hawks fans everywhere.
Atlanta was supposed to win the series with the Celtics in their undermanned condition, but the Hawks have made a mess of opportunities before. Old Demon Pressure was getting to this team again.
Had the weight of the moment overwhelmed the Hawks, to the extent that they could not win this series, consider the world this team would have faced as it cleaned out its lockers for the summer. The 60-win joyride of 2015 would have been a distant memory. It would have become entirely reasonable to peg the Hawks as a team which thrived when everything operated smoothly, but failed as soon as it was punched in the mouth.
The value of not only eliminating Boston, but doing so by winning the Hawks’ first playoff game in Beantown since 1988, is that it enables the Atlanta organization to say that the spirit of the 2015 team lives on. The group which flourished a year ago might not have soared to the same extent this year, but winning one playoff series makes 2015 less of an isolated instance and more of an ideal product of what this team can achieve.
Horford at the buzzer! #ATLHawks https://t.co/FvmW5xr6o4
— The Comeback NBA (@TheComebackNBA) April 29, 2016
When DeMarre Carroll left for Toronto, and later, when Tiago Splitter got injured, no one expected this Hawks team to be able to make the Eastern Conference Finals or come remotely close to the 60-win plateau established by coach Mike Budenholzer. Expecting the 2016 Hawks to fully live up to the 2015 gold standard was always unreasonable. The 2016 team didn’t have to rise to that same level, but it did need to show that Atlanta wouldn’t fall off the map in the East.
Just after the All-Star break, it seemed unlikely that the Hawks would meet that modest goal.
They lost at home to a Miami team without Dwyane Wade, Hassan Whiteside, and Chris Bosh. The very next night, they lost at home to the Bucks, a terrible road team. Atlanta was a disordered jumble of a team. Coaches and players needed to find a way out of the darkness if a playoff series win was going to be a realistic goal.
The team certainly righted the ship along the back stretch of the regular season, but playoff series either validate or vaporize the meaning of the 82-game journey. Losing to Cleveland won’t reflect negatively on the 2016 Atlanta Hawks.
Losing to the undermanned Celtics would have.
Now, Mike Budenholzer and his players don’t have to worry about falling short of reasonable goals and expectations. They can go to Ohio and LeBron’s lair, knowing they are playing with house money.
This team still isn’t a title contender. A happy ending against the Cavs isn’t likely to emerge. Yet, the Atlanta Hawks — by knocking out the Celtics — have earned the right to feel that their 2016 season achieved something meaningful.
Most NBA teams don’t wind up saying that at this time of year.
