Hawks fans don’t rise to occasion

ATLANTA — As the clock counted down during pregame warmups Friday in Atlanta, the Hawks’ public address announcer pleaded for fans to take their seats.

He gave the warning at five minutes and again at two minutes, but it didn’t help.

The national anthem was sung, both teams introduced and still the seating bowl at Philips Arena was mostly empty.

Eventually, fans started filing in, but Friday’s crowd will do nothing to enhance Atlanta’s reputation as an indifferent sports city. Tickets were still available as of Friday afternoon.

Before the game, the Hawks predicted a better effort form their fans.

“I know they’ve been criticized in the past,” Jamal Crawford said in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But in the playoffs they’ve been great.”

“The environment is going to be fun,” Josh Smith said. “It’s going to be as rowdy as they were (in Chicago), if not rowdier.”

Yeah, don’t think that happened. Even when the game started, the p.a. announcer continued to give instructions to the fans, such as “Don’t sit down” and “Deeefense.”

This was nothing like Game 4 of the first round in Indianapolis, when Bulls fans filled a majority of the seats. As always, though, the Bulls were well-represented in the stands.