Regular-season Hawks no match for Bulls

Anyone who watched the regular-season games between the Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks, or even just studied the box scores, will be led to believe this is an easy assignment for the Bulls.

The Hawks made a nice comeback from a 19-point deficit to win the March 2 game in Atlanta. But take away the second half of that contest and the Bulls outscored the Hawks by 68 points in the other 2½ games.

Based on the three meetings this season, Atlanta can’t keep up on the boards and has no hope of keeping Derrick Rose away from the rim without sending him to the foul line.

Widen the scope, though, and the picture changes. When the Bulls lost in Atlanta on March 2, it made 8 losses in their last nine games against the Hawks.

This is a team that has given the Bulls plenty of trouble in the past, and the Hawks’ nucleus of Al Horford, Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Marvin Williams and Zaza Pachulia has been together for a long time.

The two significant changes to the roster were adding Jamal Crawford last season and trading Mike Bibby for Kirk Hinrich in February. Hinrich may miss the entire series with a hamstring injury, which is a break for the Bulls.

Really, though, the story of the Hawks is difficult to figure. They reached the second round of the playoffs for the second straight year, then fired coach Mike Woodson, replacing him with ex-assistant Larry Drew.

There wasn’t any obvious reason for Atlanta to take a step backward this season, but that’s what happened.

Johnson averaged fewer than 20 points for the first time in six seasons with the Hawks. Crawford’s scoring dropped. Smith reverted to being an undisciplined wannabe high scorer after threatening to become a contender for defensive player of the year.

The question is, can these Hawks go back to playing the way they used to, when their length and athleticism bothered opponents most nights?

Coach Tom Thibodeau has been talking about how the Bulls need to ignore the regular-season results and look at how the Hawks are playing now. True, the first-round victory over Orlando would be impressive, except anyone who watched those games surely notice how horribly the Magic played.

Was Orlando so bad because of the Hawks? Or did Atlanta simply take advantage of a slumping team and given a different matchup would have lost to the Pacers in the first round?

Keep in mind, the Hawks finished the regular season with an 11-20 record in their last 31 games.

To hang with the Bulls, the first step for the Hawks is to hold their own on the boards. The Bulls built a rebound margin of plus-36 in the last two meetings.

Atlanta also needs big games from Johnson and Crawford, which they never got in the regular season.

The Bulls are well aware of the Hawks’ reputation for crumbling against an aggressive defense, and they’ll no doubt put the visitors to the test tonight in Game 1. Atlanta will try to feed off the frustration of consecutive second-round sweeps.

“It’s definitely going to be a change this year,” Johnson said in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I can feel it.”

mmcgraw@dailyherald.com