The Atlanta Hawks (48-34) may not have won the Southeast Division and earned the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference like they did last year.
However, the fourth-seeded Hawks will have home-court advantage against a favorable opponent in the fifth-seeded Boston Celtics (48-34) when they tip off their first-round series Saturday. Atlanta is a consensus 5.5-point favorite for Game 1 at sportsbooks Odds Shark monitors.
The Celtics lost the last three regular-season meetings with the Hawks both straight-up and against the spread after winning the first one 106-93 as 1.