I was curious, so I looked up the Hawks' records in close games (final score difference 7 or less) for the past four seasons. In 2012-13, the Hawks were 3-7 in such games, and they were 4-11 in 2013-14. This isn't too surprising given the youth/inexperience of key players in those years. Last season, they were 4-4, and while this wasn't great, it was a marked improvement and suggested that the players' experience was paying dividends. This year, we have a senior-laden team, and our record in such games in 3-6. If I hadn't seen the games and how the team seems to react when things get tight, I obviously would have expected this record to be better. For the past 4 years, this is a composite 14-28 in games decided by 7 points or fewer. Let's hope the team figures out how to start building bigger leads and how to keep opponents from getting close again because I'm not optimistic that their performance in close games is going to improve this year.