Atlanta Hawks Are for Real, but Are They Ready for What's Next?

DETROIT — NBA teams must possess many attributes to seriously contend, with talent, toughness and intelligence at the forefront. But, sometimes, a healthy dose of intentional ignorance doesn't hurt either, the ability to be entirely oblivious to outside forces and opinions.

So you can safely add that to the assets of the Atlanta Hawks, who had already surprised many by scaling the Eastern Conference standings before hopping over Stan Van Gundy's wall on Friday, raising their record to 23-3 in their past 26 games with a 106-103 win against the Pistons. But the Hawks seem to have little clue, or care, about whom they're surprising, or even that any other team exists at all.Al Horford agreed. Of all the players on the Hawks, he is most familiar with being on the team on top. He was one of the stars of the University of Florida basketball team that won back-to-back championships in 2005-06 and 2006-07. That team was targeted, by media, foes and fans alike, though mostly the latter.

"Yeah, yeah, totally," Horford said. "It was crazy. Just how up, not so much the other team, but the crowd was up and into it. It was crazy. You really felt the tension. Our whole thing was we got to keep them quiet, quiet them down. If we fell behind, that crowd gets loud, the team gets hyped, then it's a problem. For the most part, we just try to keep them down, keep driving it play after play."

The Hawks aren't the same sort of draw that those Gators were, and undoubtedly won't ever be, not unless some premium free agent takes his talents to them. Even so, Horford acknowledged the chance that more flies may start hanging within their locker room walls, and more stories about their feats and flaws may start circulating on the Internet. "It's important for us to stay focused," Horford said. "We need to understand that we need to keep playing the right way. Because you can get distracted."

This isn't the time for that, not with the three other primary East contenders, the Wizards, Bulls and Raptors, all on the schedule in the upcoming week."Man, I say it all the time, that we kind of feel like a college team," small forward DeMarre Carroll said. "We really don't listen to anything outside of the locker room. Everybody believes in each other. When we go on the road, guys eat together. We do things as a team. And we don't worry about what the people outside the locker room say. Because there are a lot of people that just say we're hot now, and we're going to fall out. If we just keep playing Hawks basketball, keep playing the winning way, keep being unselfish, I think the sky is the limit for us."

To reach those heights, they'll need to play better than they did in the second half against the Pistons, when they stopped passing with the precision that has become their hallmark this season, missed some key free throws and let Detroit get loose behind the arc. That got the crowd going, in an arena that was a little more charged than it's been lately, after a seven-game win streak that included Van Gundy's plea to his players to "form a (bleeping) wall" on the final possession in San Antonio.

Van Gundy thought the frenzy over his videotaped admonition was "strange," but that didn't stop the Pistons' marketing staff from capitalizing, with the Detroit dance team wearing "The Wall Vs. Everybody" T-shirts and the PA announcer bellowing, "To the wall, y'all. This is Stan Van Gundy."

That little splash of fun made Detroit the flavor of the day, but it was Atlanta that emerged with another, albeit sloppy, win.

Atlanta, first in the East.That would be almost impossible to believe, if you forgot that the Hawks were third in the East in Budenholzer's first season before Horford tore a pectoral muscle and missed the final 53 games.

"I don't think people really realize that," Carroll said. "But, you know, we're gonna make them realize it. Right now, we just got to keep looking forward. We can't look back."

Right now, the rest of the East, all of it, is looking up at them.It will take a little longer, but eventually, even more eyes may gaze their way.



Source http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2325271-atlanta-hawks-are-for-real-but-are-they-ready-for-whats-next