The Hawks were 14-20 on March 1st, leading to the firing of Lloyd Pierce. Three and a half months later, Nate McMillan has Atlanta in the Eastern Conference Finals. Sunday’s win over the 76ers was the franchise’s first win in a Game 7 on the road in the last ten matchups, which sends the Hawks to the Conference Finals for just the second time in the past 50 years.
The Hawks have been betting underdogs entering every playoff series this postseason. Before the opening round against the Knicks, 14 of 16 ESPN analysts predicted a New York victory, and the favorite for the outright winner of the series was set at -120 for the Knicks, according to Fanduel. Atlanta would go on to advance via a gentleman’s sweep.
Fast forward to the series against the 76ers, and it was much of the same. Mind you; these odds were distributed with the knowledge that Joel Embiid was questionable. The Hawks opened as underdogs at +165 to win the series, while the Sixers were the favorites at -215. After winning Game 2 and Game 3, the Sixers were massive favorites set at -770 to win the series, while odds seemed grim for the Hawks as +540 underdogs. Well, we all know how the rest of the series unfolded.
Now, against the Bucks, it is much of the same. According to Fanduel, Milwaukee is heavily favored to win outright at -460, while once again, Atlanta is underdogs at +360. The Bucks themselves are coming off a huge upset of their own as they took down the Nets in overtime of Game 7, but Brooklyn was overwhelming favorites to win it all before they caught some bad injury breaks.
Fanduel has the exact series prediction odds as Bucks in five (+220), Bucks in six (+400), Bucks in seven (+410), Bucks in four (+460), and the most likely outcome in a Hawks series win is in six (+900). Milwaukee is a seven-point favorites in Game 1 on Wednesday, and the over/under is set at 227. Once again, this young Hawks team is being overlooked. Be sure to constantly check back here at SportsTalkATL, as I’ll update the betting odds for each game and the entire series between the Hawks and Bucks.
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