Recapping the 2013-2014 Atlanta Hawks team.
Mike Budenholzer took over this Atlanta Hawks roster, and would eventually take them to a Eastern Conference semifinal, but the success wasn’t instant.
The Hawks lost Josh Smith in the off-season, but added Paul Millsap in his stead. They also added Millsap’s former teammate Demarre Carroll to the team.
Last season’s acquisition Kyle Korver made another stride in transition from a role player to star player, leading the league in 3-point percentage with an insane 47%.
The Hawks started out decently, a touch over .500, but star center Al Horford would sustain another long term injury as he did just two seasons earlier.
Unlike the last injury however, Horford wasn’t able to return for the playoffs, which the team was able to sneak into.
This was despite an extremely rough month of February that saw Atlanta drop 14 of 15 even while sending Paul Millsap to the All-Star game during that stretch.
They stumbled into a 8th seed at 38-44, but were much more talented than that record suggests.
This was made evident in their match up with the top-seeded Pacers in the first round.
Atlanta took a 1-0 then a 3-2 lead on the 56-win Pacers with stifling D and streaky shooting.
They eventually fell to the Paul George, Roy Hibbert led team in seven, nearly becoming one of the few eighth-seeded squads to secure a series win.
The starting five usually looked something like this:
PG – Jeff Teague
SG – Kyle Korver
SF – Deamarre Carroll
PF – Paul Millsap
C – Pero Antic
Paul Millsap led the team in scoring in his first season as a Hawk, averaging 17.9 per game on an efficient 46% shooting. He was also an instant defensive force, putting up 1.3 steals and a block per game.
Jeff Teague led the team in assists per game, something the Hawks strived in as a team, finishing 2nd in team assists per contest.
Just like the ’11-’12 team before, their ceiling was cut short by an unfortunate injury to prime Al Horford.
Fortunately, the team would only go up from here.