It is getting harder to feel optimistic about the current Atlanta Hawks season. It seems broadly understood that the team has encountered adversity. Bringing a host of new players into a season with a compressed schedule that makes it hard to practice, plus injuries causing constant change to the starting lineup... you’ve heard all of this.
But when a team is good enough to post workable leads in fourth quarters only to lose control of those games in the final period of play in a relatively consistent manner, it is hard for any fan base to find reasons, probably, to hang onto the optimism they had for the team at the start of the season.