Well the Hawks hold onto the 8th spot in the east and manages to bring in some very impressive wins down the stretch to clinch for the teams 7th straight playoff appearance. This has been a very rough season for us fans and the last couple of games around the league will be finishing up this week. Anyway let's see where the Hawks are ranked in which could be the final power rankings for this season.
Jason Patt of SBNation.com starts things off by dropping the Hawks a spot to #18.
The Hawks have won three straight games and finally eliminated the Knicks from playoff contention. It's about time New York was put out of their misery.
Matt Dollinger of SI.com gives the Hawks credit to where it is due as he ranks Atlanta at #17.
The Eastern Conference is subject to plenty of punch-lines (many of them written by me), but let's give credit where credit is due: The Hawks are playoff-bound despite losing their best player in December. They beat the Nets and Heat last week to clinch and successfully staved off the Knicks, for whatever that's worth.
John Schuhmann of NBA.com keeps the Hawks at #17 and makes a mention of our seventh straight trip to the playoffs.
The East's longest playoff streak lives on. And though the Hawks will finish at least four games under .500, they've won three straight against playoff teams, have held their opponents under a point per possession over their last eight games, and went 2-2 against both Indiana and Miami. Jeff Teague is playing like he was before Al Horford got hurt, averaging 21.0 points on 52 percent shooting in April.
Marc Stein of ESPN.com also keeps the Hawks at #18 and manages to even throw in our favorite ESPN hashtag.
Hard for me to deny that, purely for drama purposes, I was hooked on the idea of the Knicks rising off the mat to snag the East's last playoff spot. But I'm also by no means ready to say goodbye to the #eventhehawks hashtag. Good, then, to have 'em around for a couple more weeks.
Kurt Helin of NBCsports.com moves the Hawks down a spot to #18 and recognizes how Atlanta and management managed to hold onto a playoff spot without their best player for more than half of the season.
That they held on to playoff spot without Al Horford for much of the season is a testament to what GM Danny Ferry and coach Mike Budenholzer are starting to build there. Still a long way to go and the best they can do in the first round is win one game, but it’s something to build on.
Matt Moore of CBSsports.com puts Atlanta at #19 and decides to rank the teams based on how they did this year.
A big congratulations to Atlanta for landing the ultimate consolation prize: the eighth seed in the East. No, Danny Ferry, you can't return.
Well that does it for this week in rankings and we see the Hawks actually fall for the most part after a strong week. Let me know what you guys think about the rankings in the comments below and where you think they should be ranked.