Can the Conference Finals redeem the Eastern Conference?

Really, it was all heading to this, even though for most of the time, it didn't seem like it at all. The Atlanta Hawks, the epitome of team basketball in the modern era. Or at least they can be, or we think they can because they once were, for a bit.
Earlier this year they went on a 19 game win streak, driven by team basketball which shocked everyone. They moved the ball, stretched the floor, Kyle Korver shot the crap out of it from the two spot in their Eastern All Star line-up. A "star studded" team which many have agreed doesn't have a star at all. seriously, who is their best player? It can be each of their starting five at any given time.

Although, they ended the season playing reasonably average basketball, and through the first few rounds of the playoffs were not impressing anyone despite finishing with the Easts best record (60-22).

Say what you like about the awfully miserable, catastrophically old, even laughable NBA organisation we know as the Brooklyn Nets, yet they did put up some sort of fight and gave the Easts one seed a bit of trouble. And even without John Wall for the most part the Wizards had many people thinking that we were going to be seeing BB's delicious jumper for at least another round. The Hawks seemed to have lost their flair, some games they just couldn't hit shots, and others their team defence just wasn't up to scratch, and now many are left wondering if we are ever going to see the team that shocked the East.
Although despite the adversity they faced in the playoffs, they are still here, and so are the Cavs.

Whom have had to overcome their fair share of problems. Primarily coming in the form of injuries. Unlike Atlanta the Cavs started off the year in an absolute mess, which is expected. No team who has brought a whole new design together, is good straight away. Especially when three high ego players who demand a lot of the ball play together for the first time.


Although they made some major changes, got their defence sorted out and brought it all together to finish the season on a high. Then the playoffs hit, along with the plague of injuries. Yet, they are still here. Due to some outrageous play from those they had left, and a supporting cast carrying Lebron's poor efficiency (for him), both shooting the ball and controlling it.
Last year in the playoffs he averaged 56% from the field and 40% from deep, this year so far just 42% FG and an abysmal 14% from three (Per: basketball-reference.com). Got to mention also the apocalyptic failure, collapse, choke, whatever you want to call it from the Bulls which did help them out some. Seriously the Bulls couldn't have had a much better opportunity to finally beat Lebron. But again he knocked them down like a teenage guys confidence that just cant get his high school sweetheart to go out with him.

Think about this, if I told you at the start of the playoffs that the 4 top seeds from each conference would be playing each other in the conference finals; you would have laughed at me, or at least have had a great deal of questions. Sure the Cavs and Warriors were favourites to come out, but you would have said, "are you sure, are Houston even a real 2 seed, and the Hawks haven't been playing great, and don't count out the Spurs and Clippers man?"
So we get to the 2nd round and all is on track, and I tell you again, that 1 and 2 seeds will make the conference finals.
After game 1 of each we defiantly wouldn't have believed it, each team lost, Kevin love is out, the Bulls are looking pretty good. The Clippers just passed the Spurs and look like they may sweep the Rockets and the Hawks continue to be average.
So many times throughout the last few weeks it seemed highly unlikely that we would be where we are now. JR suspension, Kyrie injury, Clippers go up 3 to 1, The Truth (PP) trash talking the Hawks bench and then nailing the 3 in game 5.
Yet somehow, even though several times we may not have been able to believe it, the four teams with the "best chance" of making it are here.

And now, in the East at least, bias's aside, we have what we have all really been wanting to see. Hawks-Cavs.
All season long we have been whinging about the peasants that make up the Eastern conference compared to the kings of the West.
The only real beacons of hope were a transcendent basketball machine that went on a regular season tear before slowing down, and a team lead by its super star that once got rejigged starting to make some noise.

And now they are the two that are left. At the climax of the conference the two that kept us interested through the season are the only ones which remain. The Cavs a few men down from where they started and the Hawks still underachieving, yet that may just create the best result for all us fans. There is a chance that this matchup may single handily reconcile and rectify the rubble that has been the 2014-15 East Coast basketball venture.