This time, the Hawks are slight favorites. Thirty six years ago, Atlanta pushed the defending NBA champions, led by Elvin Hayes and Bob Dandridge, to the brink in a classic seven-game series.
It should not have taken the Bullets so long to realize that their
tormentors, ballyhooed as the mechanical creation of that raging
martinet, Hubie Brown, were instead a collection of dogged,
talented opportunists; that these Hawks could scratch and peck; and
that this was a hungry, dedicated and dangerous bunch simply
itching to prove something at somebody’s expense.