LeBron James sends Hawks and Al Horford into a pivotal offseason

11:42 PM ET

ATLANTA –- LeBron James had just missed a 3-pointer — something that felt like a rarity in this series — and the Atlanta Hawks’ fading heartbeat still had a pulse.

With about 10 seconds left, trailing by a point, Dennis Schroder brought the ball up court as Cleveland defenders scrambled around to get set on defense.

Schroder waited a few seconds before driving to the basket. But when he ran into a wall of Cavaliers in a hectic paint area and stopped, Schroder looked to pass the ball out. James came in, slammed his hand on the ball and a jump ball was called with 2.8 seconds left.

Yet again, James stood in the Hawks’ way and had a hand in sending Atlanta home for the summer.

With a chance to beat LeBron in a playoff game, the Hawks never got a shot off in the waning seconds and were swept by the Cavaliers for the second straight postseason. With their 100-99 Game 4 loss at Philips Arena, the Hawks dropped to 0-12 in playoff games against James.

Considering that Atlanta came into this series thinking it was a better team than the one James nearly averaged a triple-double against last year, this latest sweep makes it feel as if the Cavaliers are light years ahead of Atlanta now.

Despite winning a total of 108 games in the past two regular seasons, the Hawks are still nowhere near the level of James and his Cavaliers. And now the Hawks find themselves entering a pivotal offseason with some critical decisions to make.

Once again, Al Horford and the Hawks were unable to make any headway and were swept by the Cavs. Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

Al Horford, a four-time All-Star, will be a free agent this summer. He turns 30 in June and could very well command a maximum contract with a number of suitors who might covet a big man who can shoot.

Even with the rising salary cap, do the Hawks offer Horford a five-year maximum contract, knowing that fifth year could be a hard number to swallow? Horford was far from the problem against Cleveland, which buried the Hawks under an avalanche of 3-pointers.

But the 6-foot-10 center grabbed a total of 14 rebounds in the four-game series. In fact, Atlanta’s starting front court was outrebounded by James, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson by a total of 74-32 in Games 3 and 4 at home, when the Hawks had chances to beat the Cavaliers.

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