The Bulls rivalry with the Hawks is not the best or most significant in franchise history, but it is the first.
Because when the expansion Baby Bulls entered the NBA in 1966, it was then St. Louis Hawks player/coach Richie Guerin, a no-nonsense former Marine, who sniffed that the bunch of rejects wouldn’t win 10 games. And then as it happened, the Bulls opened their first season October 15, 1966 in St. Louis and beat Guerin and his Hawks 104-97 behind 36 points from Bulls point guard Guy Rodgers. Forwards Bob Boozer and McCoy McLemore each scored 15 and center Erwin Mueller had 13. Those castoffs shocked the NBA with a 3-0 start and remain the only expansion team ever to make the playoffs. Rodgers would go on to lead the NBA in assists that season, the only Bulls player ever to do so.
The physical Hawks with Bill Bridges, Zelmo Beatty and Joe Caldwell in addition to Guerin and Lenny Wilkens exacted their revenge in the playoffs that season with a 3-0 sweep of the Bulls.
Three years later in 1970 in the Bulls third playoff appearance, the opponent again was the Hawks, who by this time had relocated from St. Louis to Atlanta and were becoming a power in the league, finishing first in the Western Conference. Those Hawks won the first three games of the best of seven series that was overshadowed by the Hawks drafting Pete Maravich, whose presence eventually would lead to a split among players and breakup of the promising team because of Maravich’s huge salary. The collegiate draft then was during the first round of the playoffs.
“Pogo” Joe Caldwell, the first NBA player who leaped over a car in his case to win a bet and not a dunk trophy, proved too dynamic for the patterned Bulls in that series. Washington’s Marvin Bagley Jr., by the way, is his nephew. The Bulls got one game when Chet Walker scored 39 points and Clem Haskins 29 after one of my favorite Bulls ever, Shaler “Super Shay” Halimon in Game 3 had the Bulls ahead to the last moments in scoring 22 points. A late Hawks rally gave Atlanta the 3-0 lead. Though series loss proved the starting point for the Bulls first great run, averaging more than 50 wins in the next five seasons culminating in a bitter conference finals loss in 1975 to eventual NBA champion Golden State.
The Bulls have played the Hawks three more times in the post-season with a 23-year gap after the rollickin’ 1970 series.
Atlanta was mere dandruff to be brushed aside by the dynasty Bulls of the 1990s when the Bulls swept 3-0 in the first round of the 1993 playoffs and then stumbled briefly when in the 1997 conference semifinals the Hawks won Game 2 in Chicago before the Bulls won the next three games by an average of about 15 points for a 4-1 margin.
It was some fun in 1993 because the Hawks still had Dominique Wilkens, who had engaged with Michael Jordan in some of the best scoring duels of the 1980s. Wilkins averaging 29.9 per game was second to Jordan in scoring that season and averaged 30 in the three games. But his so-called supporting cast couldn’t contribute much.
The Atlanta 1997 team was second in the division with 56 wins to the 69-win Bulls with an eclectic group that included Steve Smith, Dikembe Mutombo, Mookie Blaylock and Christian Laettner. Jordan had a tough 12-of-29 shooting in the Game 2 loss to even the series. But the Bulls then held the Hawks to 80 points each of the next two games and breezed to the five-game series win.
The Hawks in the last post-season matchup with the Bulls, unfortunately for Atlanta, faced another Bulls superstar in a 4-2 Bulls win led by MVP Derrick Rose. After the Hawks pulled the upset again and won Game 1 in Chicago against the 62-win Bulls, Rose averaged 34 points the next four games and the Bulls went on to a 20-point romp in the game 6 clincher in Atlanta. Those were the Hawks of Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, Al Horford and former Bull Jamal Crawford.
With the Bulls set to host the Atlanta Hawks 8:30 p.m. CT Wednesday in the play-in game, the first post-season game between the teams since 2011, here’s a look at this season’s games between the teams.
—— December 26. Bulls win 118-113. Record 14-18.
With Nikola Vučević out with a groin strain, DeMar DeRozan led the Bulls with 25 points and Andre Drummond dominated with 24 points and 25 rebounds making 11-of-13 field goal attempts primarily on dunks with 10 offensive rebounds. Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu each contributed 19 points and Alex Caruso had 11 with pestering defense on Hawks All-Star guard Trae Young. Young has had some of his poorest games against the Bulls because of the harassment of Caruso and the size and arm length of Dosunmu. Drummond also had some of his biggest rebounding games. The Bulls started fast with a double-digit first quarter lead and as their season predictably went a double-digit second quarter deficit. The Bulls still needed eight late points from DeRozan to hold off Atlanta, including a step through score with 25 seconds left. “My mentality is I am not a backup,” Drummond said after his first start as a Bull. “I still believe I’m a starter in this league. The position I am in, take it and play to the best of my ability. I go after each and every one of them (rebounds and loose balls). If I can’t get it I still make the attempt; sometimes they fall my way and sometimes they don’t. The more times I go, the more times I’ll get it. It’s a skill. It gets me going in a game when I get offensive rebounds. When I came into the NBA I wanted to be the best rebounder who ever played and I set out to do that.” Drummond is the NBA’s all-time leading rebounding percentage leader ahead of No. 2 Dennis Rodman.
—— Feb. 12. Bulls win 136-126. Record 26-28.
It was a career game from Ayo Dosunmu with 29 points to match DeRozan after the Bulls again were trailing by double digits in the second quarter. It edged the Bulls into a more secure ninth place in the Eastern Conference and the Hawks tenth, and that’s where the teams stayed the last two months of the season. Young again was harassed shooting three of 14, though this time Caruso was out with a toe injury. So Dosunmu took over. Young in his two games against the Bulls shot nine of 31 overall and five of 22 on threes. Four Bulls scored at least 20 points in that game with Vučević tallying 24 and Coby White 20. Bogdan Bogdanović off the bench had 28 for Atlanta. “We didn’t start the game great, but Ayo’s pace and tempo in that second quarter really got us back in the game,” said Bulls coach Billy Donovan. “Whether it was him knocking down threes or getting to the rim, he did a lot of good things. It was a two-way performance by him. He’s got incredible stamina and endurance. I say in a lot of ways it’s a skill. The more fatigued and tired they get, the more stubborn and more competitive they push, and he’s got that in him. He can really keep the motor running high. For him to do what he did offensively and play the defense he did was a pretty remarkable performance on both ends.”
—— April 1. Hawks win 113-101. Bulls record 36-40.
The Hawks with Young out after finger surgery led from the start making 19 threes to seven for the Bulls. Vit Krejci made six, but Atlanta opted not to transfer him to a standard contract from a two-way. So he is ineligible for Wednesday’s play-in game. DeRozan scored 31 points and White 22 and Drummond had 18 rebounds. Drummond averaged 18 rebounds in the three games against Atlanta, starting one. Without Young playing, the Hawks defense was better as the Bulls shot 39% overall and 25% on threes. “We’ve got to remember this feeling,” said DeRozan. “If this is the team we’re going to match up with, we have to understand what went wrong. They shot the ball extremely well and we couldn’t get anything to drop. But we competed and played hard. Felt like it was one of those games that nothing could go our way. As bad as it feels now, I don’t think we played that bad; just missed a lot of shots. Missed a lot of opportunities and they were extremely hot.”