The Atlanta Hawks have less than 20 games left in the regular season to answer two very important questions before the playoffs begin. The most pressing question appears to be whether they will end up with the No. 3 seed or the No. 4 seed since it is pretty safe to assume they will not overtake Orlando for the No. 2 seed. It certainly sounds better to finish third as opposed to fourth, but the reality of the situation is that the No. 4 seed would be better for the Atlanta Hawks.
If they finish third, they will likely have a second round date with the Orlando Magic who they have been unable to compete with over the last two seasons. If they finish fourth they’d likely have a second round date with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It sounds crazy that the Hawks should aspire to play the team with the league’s best record, but Cleveland is a better matchup for them. While they haven’t beaten the Cavs either, their games are a lot more competitive while the Hawks consistently get blown out by the Magic. Their best bet at getting to the conference final is to go through Cleveland.
The other question the Hawks need to answer is whether or not the point guard situation needs to be addressed yet again. Jeff Teague is averaging less than 10 minutes per game, yet we’re all supposed to believe that when Mike Bibby is no longer capable of playing at a high level they’ll just turn the team over to him and all will be well. I know the Hawks are playing for playoff positioning, but if Teague really is the future point guard of this team then he needs to start going through growing pains now. During next season expectations will be even higher, so the margin for error is going to be a lot smaller. There’s going to be a learning curve so they may as well try to get as far ahead of it as possible. Hopefully, they’ll use these last few regular season games to give the kid a real opportunity to prove his worth.
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