All that glitters is not gold.
While the Atlanta Hawks do, in fact, have a pretty favorable schedule near the beginning of the upcoming season - they won't be able to get out of it without being tested.
Before they get the luxury of facing New Orleans, Indiana, Washington (2x) and Brooklyn - they have quite the stretch against tough teams in each conference. The first two games of it will be even more difficult than usual, as they're going to take place on consecutive nights.
It's an early-season back-to-back, with Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets on the tail end.
Hawks hope their luck against Rockets is different this time around
There weren't many teams that had the Hawks' number last season.
For the most part, they played up to each of their opponents - even sweeping some. Like most squads, though, they have their kryptonite. Among the teams that viewed Atlanta as a free victory last season were the Rockets.
Being in separate conferences, they don't get a significant look at one another, unless they meet in the NBA Finals. They only play each other twice every season, but if both games follow a similar pattern, it's a pretty solid indicator of how they match up.
These weren't even. Not in the slightest. In both meetings between the cross-conference squads, Houston dominated. They defeated Atlanta by double-digits both times.
To be fair, the Rockets were expected to be much better than the Hawks last season. After adding Durant via trade, they appeared to be one of the Western Conference's top contenders.
While they were still very solid last season, they could've been a whole lot better. The Hawks, on the other hand, may now be looked at as a team on Houston's caliber. After a series of offseason moves following a decent playoff showing, these two matchups may not be as lopsided as they were last time out.
Atlanta's length and tenacity could give Houston problems
At the very least, their initial matchup should go down to the wire.
Each squad possesses unique positional length, and after Atlanta's gone out of their way to acquire some better defenders and depth pieces, they may have the upper-hand.
It'll be difficult to determine until they face off, as again, they're in different conferences.
Atlanta needs to hope they've done enough to right their wrongs of the prior campaign in order to start hot. An early win against a Western Conference contender would do a whole lot for the morale of the group, before they meet again just two days later.
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