Mike on the Hawks

The Atlanta Hawks ended up the “first half” of the regular season winning 31 games, the first time since the 1996-97 season that they had 30 wins by the All-Star Break. It was a great first half for them, battling some injuries and bad luck along the way. What this team can’t do though during the second half is put it on cruise control and expect to waltz into the playoffs. The schedule gods were gracious in the fact that the Hawks got to get some R&R for the weekend before they hit the road on a five game, Western road trip. After getting trounced by the Lakers (Lamar Odom outrebounded the Hawks’ starters by himself), the Hawks had a quick turnaround game going up the coast to Sacramento, where they beat the Kings 105-100 (though the Kings were without Miller and Salmons because of the trades that were made earlier in the day). It was a good win, because A. the Kings are the worst team in the NBA B. it was a rebound game after a poor showing in Los Angeles, that they could get motivated to do better. Friday night, they have a tough game at Portland, and then have the Saturday and Sunday off before they are at Utah and then on Wednesday when they take on the Nuggets, whom I got to see the Hawks soundly thrash in Atlanta in December. Currently, 1-1 on the road trip. Realistically, they will probably drop two of the next three, but if they want to say they are a legit team to compete with the big boys, they are going to have to do better than that. The Hawks are currently sitting in fourth place, 3 1/2 games ahead of the Miami Heat and 7 1/2 games behind the Orlando Magic. Like I said before, the Hawks can’t become complacent, but the #4 seed is looking pretty realistic right now.