Yesterday, I looked at how the Rockets and Warriors matched up against one another this regular season, with the caveat that regular season performance carries over only so much into the postseason, even in the case a dominant performance like Golden State’s 4–0 regular season sweep of Houston. The same caveat applies as we look to the Eastern Conference Finals, featuring the Atlanta Hawks and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Hawks won the regular season series, 3–1, but with one of those games taking place in November, and two in December, those games took place before both the Hawks established their dominant rhythm and also before the Cavaliers assumed their presently dominant identity by trading for Timofey Mozgov.