TheHighlightFactory.net: Atlanta Hawks '10-'11 Season Preview

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Atlanta Hawks Advance to 2nd round; Still Have High Hopes

Everyone in Philips Arena heard it loud and clear as Ryan Cameron said, “Look out South Beach!”. The Atlanta Hawks defeated the Chicago Bulls in a competitive five games and will now be facing the 2011 title favorites and the #1 seed, the Miami Heat.

After the game, the Hawks locker room was filled with smiling faces. The smiling stopped and the atmosphere of the room quickly turned intense as Coach Larry Drew said, “We did great in this series, but the road is just going to get tougher and bumpier.” Every single player was honed in on Coach Drew's post game speech. It seems like every player will be looking forward to the challenge of facing The Miami Thrice and Co.

“We split the series 2-2 during the season so it's definitely going to be a competitive matchup. Our team and their team have the same goals, which is to win a championship, so we fully expect a tough series, starting point guard Jeff Teague said.

Unlike the 1st round matchup with Chicago, Atlanta will not have homecourt advantage in the series. The Hawks will have to win at least one road game to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. It's not entirely impossible since Atlanta showed a decent record on the road, winning a little more than half of their road games. They will have a harder time this series though considering Miami posted one of the best record at home this season.

You can believe that five time all-star Joe Johnson will not back down from this challenge. “There's no back-down from this team. No one is intimidated, certainly not me. But if we can keep on running the offense LD is telling us to do, we'll be alright,” Joe Johnson said. Atlanta's offense is one of the toughest to defend and is led by Johnson's team high 21.6 ppg.

Meanwhile, first time All-star, Josh Smith thinks defense is the key in this series. “They can attack you in many different ways, and everyone on the team needs to communicate with one another to contain them,” Josh Smith explained. The Hawks defense were somewhere in the middle of the pack during the season and will definitely have to be a tad better in this series.

The Hawks players had a “chip on their shoulder” attitude all season long and that mindset will be carried into this series. “We were doubted since the beginning. A lot of experts said that we weren't going to improve our record from last season, and we proved them wrong. We've been proving a lot of people wrong and we will continue to do it,” Al Horford said on his post game interview. The Atlanta Hawks improved their 53 win season from a year ago by tying the franchise high 57 wins. 

The Atlanta Hawks have been a great story this season. Wil this team show it's a true contender or has everything been false optimism? Story will be continued after the series…

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