WASHINGTON -- The NBA is a superstar league. Every night is a performance starring alpha dogs who want the ball in their hands for the big shot, who loudly demand it in the biggest moments. The volume of that demand is the measure of manhood in the NBA, particularly in springtime when hitting a big shot can enshrine a player as a legend for eternity.

This system works for just about everyone involved. The superstar gets the ball in the big spot. If he hits the contested game winner, he’s an assassin. If he doesn't, at least he had the fortitude to lay it out there. For the coach, it’s a win-win. If the shot falls, he made the right call. If it doesn’t, well, all you can do is put the ball in the hands of your go-to guy. Who can fault that?

When we last left the Atlanta Hawks, following their 82-81 over Washington in Game 5 on Wednesday, they were riding this brand of hero ball. Down a point, they unleashed their quickest playmaker, 21-year-old backup point guard Dennis Schroder, to take an elite defender off the dribble with less than eight seconds left. Schroder's potential game winner never reached the rim because it was swatted away by John Wall, who, like everyone else in Philips Arena, knew precisely what was to occur.

Fortune spun the Hawks' way, as Al Horford cleaned up the spill and dropped it through for a win. And while it was a valiant play that personified Horford's competitive will, the larger sequence in no way reflected how the Hawks fashion themselves as a basketball team.

The Hawks didn't escape in Game 5 because they stayed true to their identity as a ball-sharing cooperative that won 60 regular-season games by valuing process and execution over individual exploits. They won because they got a lucky bounce, as coach Mike Budenholzer called Horford's rebound.

In Game 6 on Friday night in Washington, the Hawks encountered another razor-thin margin down the stretch. In what's become a familiar postseason pattern for the Hawks, the starting unit built a comfortable lead that vanished over time. With a minute left in regulation, the game was tied 89-89 with the balance in the hands of that starting five -- Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, DeMarre Carroll, Paul Millsap along with Horford.

The Hawks have gotten timely contributions from key reserves. Not to pick on Schroder, whose electric game and irrepressible swagger will undoubtedly do big things for Atlanta. Kent Bazemore's energy, Pero Antic's instincts and Mike Muscala's finesse have all had moments in the sun.

But this starting unit best represents what the Hawks do so well -- the collective desire to read every possession for its best potential outcome, the willingness to pass up a decent shot for a better one, the commitment to play through the full cycle of options. This is what endeared the Hawks to basketball purists and aesthetes who fell in love with following the ball speed around the floor during Atlanta’s 19-game winning streak this winter.

When it mattered most in the final minute on Friday, in the most important possessions in the history of a franchise that hasn't advanced to a conference final since 1970, the Hawks played like themselves. In the 27 seconds that reversed 45 years of Atlanta Hawks history, the Hawks somehow found consecutive layups at the rim for the one guy in the lineup who didn't get an All-Star bid, and they did it in the most pressurized half-court situation against the league's No. 5 defense.

“It was just a pick-and-roll for Al Horford and I, but the whole time, I knew DeMarre Carroll slashes to the basket all the time,” Teague said. “I decided to drive at John Wall and see if he would commit to me, because he was helping all night, and once I saw DeMarre make the cut, I just went to hit him with a timely pass.”

It wasn't the most artful set in the Hawks’ playbook. Korver and Millsap stood stationary in opposing corners. Horford set two high screens at the top of the floor, the second of which he slipped, then popped. Once Teague and Horford initiated the action, Carroll made his basket cut from the left slot.

But if we go back to Teague's short narration above, what’s exceptional about it is how much of the blow-by-blow resides in the interpretation of the event. He knew Carroll slashes, just as he decided to go at Wall to see if he’d commit.

A lot of ball handlers in Teague’s spot here would adopt tunnel vision and fly at the basket like an insect at a floodlight. Teague draws a flowchart, reads it, then reacts. It seems logical, but this isn't how things are generally done in the NBA.

“The philosophy is a little different,” Millsap said. “And it doesn't matter what philosophy you have, if you have guys on the same page and guys who believe in it, you can run whatever you want to run.”

The Hawks have flashed glimpses of this philosophy for stretches of their two playoff series but haven’t really sustained it. Washington defended them well over six games and attached a bear trap to Korver, which gummed up the Atlanta offense. Even as the Hawks took a 3-2 lead after Wednesday’s miracle, there had been a foreboding that even if they managed to shake the Wizards, they would stumble into the conference finals as only a faint resemblance of the team that stretched the league thin all season with ball movement and syncopated rhythm.

That's why it was so satisfying to see the Hawks pull ahead late in a closeout game with the perfect expression of who they are.

“We aren't made up of the superstars,” Korver said. “We all have to play well. We all have to be our piece to the puzzle and really focus on being the best piece we can. And when we do that, we get stuff like DeMarre slashing to the basket and getting layups at the end of games. Obviously, in pressure moments like that, you’re trying to find an easier shot. Those end up being big, big buckets.”

The Hawks are the least capable one-on-one team left in the postseason, and it’s not really close. Cleveland can throw LeBron James and Kyrie Irving at any matchup, as can the Clippers with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Golden State and Houston feature Steph Curry and James Harden, respectively -- one and two in the MVP vote.

The Hawks have five expert craftsmen who are engaged in a different kind of basketball project. Shots will rarely be created out of thin air. They’ll come through mutual trust and sharp reads and zippy passes to teammates who, like Teague and Carroll, intuitively know how, where and when the other guy likes to get the ball. The more often the Hawks remember this is who they are, the better situated they will be to counter the alpha dogs who stand between them and a title.

“We have to win being ourselves,” Millsap said. “We’re not going to win being someone else or being a different team. We’re not going to change overnight. We've got to stick to who we are, stick to our basics, stick to our principles.”