The Schedule: Hawks Armageddon Near? Maybe, Maybe not.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

36 GAMES LEFT IN SEASON

Games vs teams under .500: ( 17 ) - 9 home / 8 away

- New Orleans ( 1 ) - home

- Dallas ( 2 ) - home / away

- Orlando ( 2 ) - away / home

- Sacramento ( 1 ) - home

- Detroit ( 1 ) - away

- Toronto ( 2 ) - home / away

- Phoenix ( 2 ) - away / home

- LA Lakers ( 2 ) - home / away

- Philadelphia ( 3 ) - 2 home / away

- Cleveland ( 1 ) - home

Games vs teams .500 or better: ( 19 ) - 8 home / 11 away

- Indiana ( 2 ) - 2 away

- Memphis ( 1 ) - home

- Miami ( 2 ) - home / away

- Milwaukee ( 4 ) - 2 home / 2 away

- Portland ( 1 ) - home

- Utah ( 1 ) - away

- Denver ( 1 ) - away

- Brooklyn ( 2 ) - home / away

- Boston ( 2 ) - 2 away

- NY Knicks ( 2 ) - home / away

- San Antonio ( 1 ) - away

Teams in GREEN could possibly be at or over. 500 when we play them

Teams in RED could possibly be under .500 when we play them

A lot of factors will come into play when determining where we finish in the East. Of course, everyone knows that we've been playing sub .500 basketball since New Year's Eve ( 7 - 11 ). If that overall trend continues, we'll only win 14 more games to close out the year and finish with a 40 - 42 record. That looks like an 8th seed in the East, with us being in grave danger of missing the playoffs altogether, if Philly or possibly Toronto gets hot.

Not good.

We could look at it a couple of different ways though.

As of right now, the Hawks have a 16 - 8 record at home ( .667 winning percentage ) and a 10 - 12 record on the road ( .455 winning percentage ). If those 2 trends continue, the Hawks will win about 11 of their remaining 17 home games and 8 of the 19 road games. That's 19 more wins, trending us at 45 - 37, possibly at 47 wins, depending on the status of Boston and LA in March. That puts us in the convo for a 5th or 6th seed, in my opinion.

Hawks have been pretty good vs non .500 teams, winning 15 of those 21 games so far ( .714 winning percentage ). With possibly 17 more games vs those types of teams, the Hawks project to win 12 of them if that trend continues. On the other side, the Hawks are a respectable 11 - 14 ( .440 winning percentage ) vs .500 or above teams. If that trend continues, the Hawks will win 8 of the remaining 19 games vs these types of teams. This also puts us at 20 more wins and a 46 - 36 record.

( NOTE: Only Miami ( 14 - 12 ) and the NY Knicks ( 11 - 10 ) currently have a winning record vs these types of teams )

But this may be the most disturbing part of the schedule. 11 of the remaining 19 games on the road are vs those .500 or better teams. Our last road win vs a team of this caliber came December 9th @ Memphis. As a matter of fact, the ONLY road wins vs current .500 or better teams have come vs OKC and Portland early in November, and Memphis. That would put us 3 - 8 on the road vs the current .500 and over teams, including 5 straight losses.

The consolation is that sub .500 teams aren't coming into Philips and marching out with a victory. In fact, the ONLY bad team that has come into Philips and beat the Hawks, were the Cleveland Cavaliers back on November 30th. The issue with the remaining sub .500 teams, is that we're going to start playing what I call "high quality bad teams". Teams like Philly, Dallas, LA Lakers, and maybe even now Toronto with Rudy Gay, are threats to us when we play them.

So at the end of the day, do you believe that the Hawks will trend toward the 46 win mark . . . or the 40 win mark? Could we trend even higher . . or lower?

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

I had us at 46 wins before the season and I'm sticking to my guns on that one. Every team rides the roller coaster throughout the season and I believe our rough patch is behind us. I have us as a sixth seed in the East, but missing the playoffs isn't that bad of a thing, unless your looking at it on the side of revenue. We all knew nothing would come out of this season except all of the cap space this offseason. I still want the Hawks to win, but I am being realistic about the season. Right now, I'm just enjoying watching the games and rooting them on.

[yungsta]

beginning of the season I had us a few games under .500. Around 37-39 wins. 7th or 8th seed with the 6th seed being our ceiling. I thought philly would and the celtics would be higher than us and we would be battling with Milwaukee for the 7th and 8th seed.

With bynum not playing a game yet and celtics having a nightmare season with injuries I think we are locked in the 6th seed. and will finish around 44 wins. But with this team you just dont know. We have had some injury troubles ourselves.

[Guest]

They can lose all of their games as long as they are competitive, but when we lose it's bad all around basketball which I cannot stand.