NBA Playoffs 2017: Power ranking all 16 playoff teams

14. Atlanta Hawks

The Hawks are a bad and inconsistent team that relies way too heavily on their defense. Atlanta finished the season with a top-five ranked defense, which is good, but also the 27th-best offense. They’re a 3-point shooting team that lacks shooting and their two main pieces don’t quite fit well. Dennis Schroder has had an okay season, but nothing about him has been overly impressive. Dwight Howard has had a great year individually, but he still demands to post the ball up like a traditional big man far too often. There are signs of a good team somewhere in Atlanta, but they can’t escape the severe mediocrity.

If the Hawks have one thing going for them it’s their defense. That part of them is legitimate, and they finished the season fairly strong with two wins over Cleveland. They also went 6-10 in March, including a seven-game losing streak with losses to Milwaukee, Washington, Charlotte, and Brooklyn. The Hawks managed to barely hang on to the No. 5 seed, but it’s hard to see a scenario in which they beat Washington right now. They just can’t score enough, and by the end of the year they were closer to missing the playoffs than they were to gaining homecourt in the first round. That’s how big the gap is between four and five.

The Hawks’ offense will be their downfall. They can try to keep games as low scoring as they want, but if the offense won’t come with them then they’re eventually going to fall behind. It’s not going to be a sweep, but it’s going to be an ugly hard-to-watch series.