Hawks Should Be Playing Tonight, Not Yesterday Afternoon

Let’s make one thing clear here.  I don’t enjoy complaining about things out of my control.  It doesn’t serve me in any way.  But this morning I woke up still ticked off about the NBA’s decision to have the Atlanta Hawks host the Washington Wizards in Game 1 of the Eastern Semis early Sunday afternoon.  This wasn’t even 36 hours removed from the Hawks clinching their first round series over the Nets in Brooklyn Friday night.  The well-rested Wizards coming off an easy sweep of the Toronto Raptors pushed the tired Hawks in Game 1 until the home team ran out of gas in the fourth quarter.

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This was avoidable if the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls begin their series yesterday afternoon instead.  The Bulls haven’t played since April 30th when they clobbered rival Milwaukee Bucks in Game 6 of their opening round series. Cleveland hasn’t played since they swept the Boston Celtics last Sunday April 26th, the same day the Wizards swept the Raptors.

I don’t think LeBron James and company need eight days off to play in a playoff game.  While I understand that Cleveland and Washington should benefit from ending their opening round series’ early, the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks were seemingly punished for playing a competitive first round with Brooklyn with such a quick turnaround in the second round.

I’m not mad at Washington.  They’re playing great basketball down the stretch and for some unknown reason HC Randy Wittman knows how to get his Wizards team to win road playoff games.  This series between Southeastern Divisional foes was going to go six or seven games any way.  I’m angry at the Association for putting the Eastern Conference’s top seed in an unfair situation that could have been easily corrected.  Washington broke Atlanta’s home court advantage with the help of poor scheduling from the Association.

I understand that Commissioner Adam Silver wants to restore parity and competitive balance to the league after his mentor former Commissioner David Stern completely neglected that notion for the better part of thirty years.  But extending playoff series for the revenue by scheduling unfair fights is wrong.  The error was obvious in the second half for the Hawks who shot 5-28 from the field in the fourth quarter.  While Coach Bud and his Atlanta Hawks team aren’t going to publicly criticize the quick turnaround in their 104-98 defeat at home to the Wizards, I’m sure they’re livid about it behind closed doors.

Atlanta normally gets the short end of the stick across all sports, but this time it’s different.  If I was a member of the Atlanta Hawks or their coaching staff, I would take this scheduling blunder very personally and let out all frustration by dominating the Washington Wizards at home on Tuesday night for Game 2.  Then the team can rest and regroup for Game 3 in Washington on Saturday evening.  Let’s take this anger and further fuel the fire as we embark on the deepest playoff run in Atlanta NBA history.  I still believe, let’s go Hawks!