You never want a team to be satisfied with anything short of a championship, but one could understand if the Atlanta Hawks see their participation in the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals as quite the achievement.
For a little perspective, consider the following fact: by defeating the Wizards in six games the Hawks broke a streak of 28 consecutive playoff appearances that ended before the conference finals.
The next closest? The Clippers, whose streak now goes to 11.
In other words, this is the end of an epically bad run. Sure, the Hawks have had several good teams, even a couple of No. 1 seeds, but for whatever reason just couldn’t put it together in the postseason (of course, trading Dominique Wilkins for Danny Manning killed one promising run).
The odd thing this year is the team hasn’t played that well in the playoffs. Admittedly, the Nets and Wiz aren’t exactly elite, but each of those teams raised their play and gave the Hawks fits. Is it a good thing or bad thing the team hasn’t played well?