Atlanta Hawks Outperform Orlando Magic: Atlanta's Other Dirty Birds

Down here in Atlanta, we do things a little differently. People like to say Atlanta is a district unto itself, separated by the rural south clamoring around it. It has culture and affluence, even history and influence. Also, it has a professional basketball team. And a lot of people don't know this, given the Hawks' performances over recent years.

Because in addition to playing in Atlanta, the dirty birds (of basketball) also play in the NBA's Eastern conference. Even before the millions dollar earthquake down in Miami, they had to contend yearly with the established pedigree of Boston and the would-be team of the future Magic.

By and large, the Hawks could only ever aspire to a +X game regular season, where X is the number of games it took for them to lose in the first round.

But even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day. On Saturday, the team from the "Highlight Factory" (which is hardly ever full on account of its own players) went on the road, down to Orlando and took game one. Joe Johnson, who for better or worse is the star of team, didn't underachieve and the rotating door of centers made Dwight Howard's life difficult enough for the rest of the team to outscore him and a late-surging Jameer Nelson.

Even with Howard's record-breaking 31 point first half, it was difficult to argue with a strategy that left the All-Star center in isolation, covered the troublesome perimeter shooters and maintained a comfortable lead.

So the question is: Are the Hawks still that broken clock, too good to ever get a decent draft pick, but not good enough to ever really be seriously considered a finals threat?

I suppose we'll find out.

Doubtful the Magic will take this loss lying down, playing at home and facing a 2-0 deficit coming back to Atlanta where the Hawks play their most inspired ball. It seems to be the trend so far that the "better" team has been "taking it easy" in game one in several of the series around the league. I predict that the Hawks will be getting Orlando's A-game.

We'll see if they can make magic happen twice in a row.