I won't pretend to speak for all Hawks fans, but I know most of us were disappointed when Al Horford was denied Rookie of the Year honors in favor of Kevin Durant a couple weeks ago. That's not to say we were surprised at the outcome of the voting - it was pretty clear most people had decided for KD despite our protestations - but we held out hope until the end that the people voting on the award would look a little deeper than just points per game to make up their minds on a winner.

It may not have happened in the ROY voting, but it did happen, just ever so slightly, in the coaches' voting for the All-Rookie teams.

The All-Rookie squads were announced today, and the Hawks' Al Horford was impressively the only unanimous choice. I realize this isn't the most amazing thing to happen since sliced bread, but there is a part of me that takes just a tiny bit of pleasure in seeing Durant go (slightly) unrewarded for putting up empty stats on a terrible team. That's not to say I really know how you could leave him off the first ballot (nor is it to say that I don't think Durant has a bright future in the league), but I love that someone took a look at Seattle's team record and decided he needed no further information.

Congrats to Al for this final honor to top off his terrific rookie campaign.

In other news, I worked at TNT last night helping out with the coverage of Game 4 of the Celtics-Cavs series, which Cleveland won to knot the series at 2-2. A discussion began regarding the Celtics performance in this series and what it said about the Atlanta-Boston first round affair. Some think the Celtics' continued road troubles dulled the shine a bit off the Hawks surprising first-round run, while I submitted that the Cavaliers' ability to rally in this series is based in large part on reading the Hawks earlier success against the East's top seed.

As I stated after Game 7, even though the Hawks lost they were still able to shatter the Celtics' air of invincibility. A team that won 66 games in the regular season, barely breaking a sweat on the way, was suddenly unsure of itself and scrambling for answers. This theme has been repeated in the last two games in Cleveland, and has many people once again asking  if this Boston team has what it takes to even reach the finals, let alone win the title. I know the Celtics never really thought they'd lose to the Hawks, but they better be careful against Cleveland. LeBron James still hasn't had a good game in this series, and yet the Cavs are one road-win away from sending the Celtics to the golf course for the summer.

And if they do, I think the Hawks deserve some credit for softening them up a bit first.