After a bunch of scrapping and classical East Fraudulence the two best are facing each other in the Eastern Conference Finals.


•On one side we have the Atlanta Hawks (60-22)



After playing some excellent basketball during the regular season which included a 19-game winning streak and the lack of competition in the East, the Hawks easily topped the conference with 60 wins. The team ranked 6th both in Ortg and Drtg and solid defense combined with flowing beautiful offense is what made the team so fun to watch and dangerous during the regular season.

Their road to the finals hasn't been as easy as expected though. They had to go to 6 games versus the Nets and versus the Wizards with a hurt John Wall. They were 0.1 sec away from having to play an OT away in game 6 but the truth finally ran out of WIM.

Their "struggle" is basically the simple consequence of not making as many shots. While they're not getting as many good looks as they were in the regular season, they're also not shooting the ball as well. The Hawks ranked 2nd in 3P% during the regular season at 38% and they are down to 34.3% during these playoffs. Big part of it is Kyle Korver regressing from his ridiculous 49.2% to just 35.0% in these playoffs). The defense has remained solid neverthless and if they do start making more shots, there is no doubt the Cavs will have a tough task.

The Hawks X-factor is their January Eastern Player of the Month who can be seen in the picture below :



We shall not forget the German menace with the most ridiculous hair :





After a questionable night out the Hawks have had huge bad luck in losing key element to the title and potential MVP Thabo Sefalosha. To add insult to the injury, Pero Antic the big man who can shoot the 3 (but not really) and can not defend, did not get injured resulting in him playing a lot of minutes which remains a questionable decision from Coach of the Year Bud.





•On the other side we have the Cleveland Cavaliers (53-29)



Following the trade that led them to acquiring Mozgov, Shumpert and JR Smiff (all valuable pieces) and saw them get rid of potentially worst player in the league in Dion Waiters, the Cavs have made a turnaround and finished the season very strong with basically the best 5man lineup in the league in Kyrie/Smiff/Lebron/Love/Mozgov.

They swept the Celtics relatively easily but lost Love in the process (shoulder). Kyrie has a sprained ankle and a tendinitis making him look very limited in his movement. Smiff got himself embarrasingly suspended for the first 2 games of the Chicago series so naturally it all relied on Lebron.

And the King while struggling to shooting defensively when guarded by an excellent Jimmy Butler but as my man d'angelo would say : "You see the king stays the king" :



Eventually even with the loss of Love and Kyrie's injury issues the lolBulls was too strong to take advantage of a limping Cleveland who eventually made it through in 6 games thanks to the contribution of bench players like Smiff, Delly or the beast Tristian Thompson.

The Cavs have the best offensive rating and net rating in these playoffs so far but lolEast makes it fairly meaningless.

Whether or not Atlanta can defend Lebron effectively in this series is yet to be answered and if the answer is yes, the role players + Kyrie will need to step up in what could be a very competitive series.

Atlanta do have home court advantage and the regular season head-to-head but playoffs Atlanta is another story as they're only averaging 98 points at home and Cavs margin of victory is actually higher away than home making HCA less significant.

Let us NBA and i'm predicting Cavs in 6

KORVERS in 4.

Yeah I could see Teague killing Kyrie then they put Shumpert on him. As long as JR can chase around Korver without getting cooked (5 years ago Korver killed him in a Jazz/Nuggs series IIRC) then Cle should be fine.

This is the type of series Kyrie's defense could get exposed badly

I like the Hawks' chances.

I think a lot of this is going to depend on Kyrie's health. If he feels better by game 2ish I don't see him having any issues scoring at will on ATL's bigs.

LBJ on DMC will be interesting to watch because if they play it like Thibs I don't see DMC having much in the tank left for offense.

That said, Kyrie most likely won't be healthy and I do like some ATL matchups... I think it's a very close series with ATL winning in 7.

Hawks are a lot less dependent on DMC's offense than Chicago on Butler's offense so I think it's okay if DMC is going to be out of gas. With that said, for that to be true Korver has to step up significantly on offense. If he's not hitting 3's then Atlanta will have no chance.

Kyrie's ankle is big because Teague's penetration is what gets Atlanta's offense going. Millsap/Horford should be a lot better than TT/Mozgov, but neither Millsap or Horford are dominant 1-on-1 players so I don't think the gap between the frontcourts will be that big when factoring in for LeBron. It's not like there's a big mismatch Atlanta can take advantage of.

Cleveland will probably win 1-2 games easily but the rest of the games will be really close and Atlanta will have to run good/execute late to win the series.

If Kyrie is as hurt as he was in Game 4 I think Cleveland is in big trouble.

If there is any justice in the world, Korver will be great and Smiff will be terrible.

Anyone think we might see a lot of TT? He's probably better equipped to handle Horford and they could run out Kyrie JR Shump LBJ TT

I like Cavs chances if everyone is healthy. Will be fun to see how DMC does though. He's had a great playoffs, making himself a lot of money.

Hawks should also theoretically be able to punish the Cavs for playing Jones and Dellavedova much more than the Bulls did. People are looking at how easily Cleveland beat Chicago but I still don't think the Cavs defense is that good. Bulls often had multiple players on the court who were basically giving zero offense.

nice op

2/1 seems pretty crazy and don't like cleveland at that price.

but i'm ALL IN. let us CAVS

there's a good few cav/hawks LLs that were made earlier in the season. should be pretty fun.

A

T

L

And the Bulls are bad

hawks in 5 or 6

Hawks' starters MPG in playoffs:

Korver: 38
Millsap: 35.5
DMC: 35
Horford: 34
Teague: 32

I'd expect all of them except Teague to avg 40+ the rest of the way. HAWKS in 6.

I'm pretty sure Troll wakes up in cold sweats after having nightmares about this shot. You can probably find him stumbling down Chicago streets in raggedy clothes, mumbling to himself.

i've got BUBBA SPARXXX as underrated.

Korver hits a buzzer beater in game 7 to win the series that launches Cinarocket into orbit, who spends the rest of his days on RealGM cursing white snipers who spit hot fire.

Or maybe the Cavs win in 6 and then lose to the Woyas. One of the two for sure.

Cavs in 4. Will completely expose this fraudulent Hawks team.

Hawks in 7

not a cavs fan bro

I feel better about our chances now

HAWKS in 6

Hawks in 7, I think they're getting the hang of this. LeBron won't go quietly though.

LABRAWNS in 6.

This touches on what I brought up briefly in the Cavs/Bulls thread. This is going to be a really interesting series of matchups.

I expect that we'll see a lot more adjustments on who players are guarding rather than how they're guarding (sending help, jumping P&R, etc). Nets and Wiz both played the "we're bigger and can take advantage of the undersized Hawks frontline" game, but the Cavs can't play that game so I think there will be more experimenting.

I could see the Hawks matching up a Kyrie-JR-Shump-LBJ-TT lineup by putting Millsap on Shump (standard starting 5) or even going double PG small-ball and forcing Kyrie to guard a penetrating guard, which isn't exactly his strong suit. That also forces LBJ onto a 3 point shooter which takes away his ability to crash on defense from the weakside.

Agreed with whoever said the over is the play. Hawks struggle in iso-defense, Cavs love iso-ball. Cavs have a couple really good on-ball defenders, but seem to get lost more than they should on rotations.

Hopefully it's going to be a super interesting series.

Hoping for the best.