“Atlanta’s Kent is smokin’ haht!”
Readers know by now that yours truly grew up a 76ers fan. Pretty much any Sixers fan aged 40-plus remembers the joy of their team beating the Lakers in L.A. and winning the 1983 NBA Finals, “fo-fi-fo” and all that. But an even more fond memory didn’t even result in an NBA title. It involved a game one season before, one in which Boston Celtics fans showed up rocking… bedsheets.
No, there was no school desegregation protest going on. The Sixers had blown playoff advantages in previous seasons, often in tragicomic fashion, often right in the eerie, decrepit, yet revered Boston Garden. The 76ers blew a 3-1 playoff lead versus the Celtics in 1981, and were on the verge of doing it again in the 1982 conference finals. Celtics fans knew their team had a psychological leg up in this bitter playoff rivalry with their conference rivals, and dressed up The Ghosts of Playoff Pasts to ensure Philly wouldn’t forget.
It was up to Doctor J and the soon-to-be-named Boston Strangler, Andrew Toney, to exorcise these ghosts and break their hex to return to the NBA Finals. Decades later, the Atlanta Hawks are in a prime position to follow the Spirits of 76ers and terminate a ghoulish playoff history in Boston, beginning tonight in Game 3 of their first-round series (8:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast, CSN New England, ESPN2). Will the Hawks be Ghostbusters, or will they remain spooked by the specter of raised expectations?
March 29, 1960, Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Bob Pettit scored 35 points, he and cat-quick guard Si Green keying a second-half comeback as the Hawks overcame a 7-point halftime deficit to win by 13, boos raining down from the Gahden faithful in what was called “a dogfight to the end,” despite 30 points from Bill Sharman and a then-playoff-record 40 rebounds from Bill Russell.
April 6, 1973, Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semis. Behind Herm Gilliam, the Hawks turned the tables on the Big Green Machine after ending the first-quarter down 29-16. John Havlicek totaled 83 points in the first two games of the series, but could only muster 18 points in Game 3. Lou Hudson with 37, Gilliam with 25, Pete Maravich with 24. Head coach Cotton Fitzsimmons credited a scrumptious team dinner in Boston the night before: “It helped us get it all together.”
May 18, 1988, a pivotal Game 5 of the conference semis. The Hawks stormed ahead with 43 fourth-quarter points, shocking the Celtics and forcing a titanic elimination game back in Atlanta. Boston had previously prevailed in 133 of 141 games at the hallowed Gahden, and an unlucky 13 straight games versus the Hawks in that building. “Everybody felt sorry for us that we couldn’t win here,” said coach Mike Fratello, who shifted a struggling Dominique Wilkins to shooting guard late in the contest. “When you’re going against a streak like that, you just have to work through it.” Nique shot a Durant-esque 7-for-22, but finished with 25 points after the Czar’s benching and re-positioning. Kevin Willis carried the day with 27-and-14, Doc Rivers had 21 and Cliff Levingston added 16 off the bench.
And, that’s all, folks! 29 playoff games by the Hawks in Beantown, and in 26 of those occasions, the guys in green came away victorious. In all but one of those previous nine playoff series, the Celtics enjoyed homecourt advantage; the Hawks fumbled away Game 2 at home in 2012, and that was all she wrote. Tonight’s Hawks hope Atlanta’s playoff losing streak in Boston halts at nine games.
Much like reaching the ECFs in 2015, a win tonight would place the Hawks in fairly uncharted territory as a franchise. The last time the Hawks went up 3-0 versus anybody was in 1970, a 4-1 series win over the Chicago Bulls. And there was apparently a tectonic shift since the last time Atlanta swept anybody, a 2-0 sweep of the Houston Rockets in a 1979 Eastern Conference first round series. Never in its history, not in Tri-Cities, Milwaukee, St. Louis, nor Atlanta, had this team run the table in a seven-game series.
To place themselves in position to break out brooms on the TD Garden parquet floor, the Hawks must collectively check off boxes that aided their cause in the comfier confines of Philips Arena. In Atlanta, the Hawks held the Celtics to a Playoffs-low 38.4 effective field-goal percentage and limited their opponents to a 19.0 offensive rebound percentage (2nd-lowest in Playoffs), 8.0 points off turnovers (lowest in Playoffs) and just 15.5 free throw attempts per game (2nd-lowest in Playoffs). In the fastest-paced series so far in this postseason, the Hawks have posted a league-high 17.5 fastbreak PPG, compared to Boston’s 11.5 PPG.
The Hawks have gotten the job done thus far without appreciable offensive input from regular-season leading scorer Paul Millsap (1-for-12 FGs, 1 assist, 5 TOs in Game 2), more than one half of perimeter fire from Kyle Korver (5-for-6 3FGs in 1st half of Game 2), or reliable bench output (1-for-6 3FGs, 5 assists, 4 TOs).
Millsap and Kent Bazemore combined to shoot just 3-for-26 from the field, but made enough defensive plays in Game 2 to ensure the Hawks went wire-to-wire in an 89-72 win. The Celtics have been adamant about using Jae Crowder and Amir Johnson to make post play troublesome for Millsap. But with Atlanta’s perimeter game slowly opening up and Al Horford (3-for-4 3FGs in Game 2) finding his groove, Crowder will be less able to provide help and stop Millsap from wrecking shop on the Celtics’ inferior interior.
Dennis Schröder showed signs of life early in Game 2 but sprained an ankle late in the contest. If he can go, he’ll need to focus on forcing mistakes and contested shots out of Marcus Smart (probable after sustaining a rib injury early in Game 2) and Isaiah Thomas without fouling. If not, while Jeff Teague will provide a heavier workload, those tasks will fall to Kirk Hinrich, one of two veterans (including Kirk Humphries) rested by coach Mike Budenholzer who are likely to see more playing time on the road.
Boston is seeking to avoid a franchise-record tying eighth consecutive playoff defeat, and one can bet the Garden will be amplifying crowd noise at every sense of Celtic momentum. The Hawks were unable to force the Celtics into committing turnovers in Atlanta, and will have to gain an advantage in this area during Games 3 and 4 to quell a boisterous but increasingly desperate crowd.
It’s up to Thomas (3-for-9 2FGs, 1-for-6 3FGs, 7-for-8 FTs in Game 2) to get the Celtics’ offense purring, not just from looking for his own shots. Boston’s 30.5 catch-and-shoot attempts per game lead the Playoff field, but their 26.2 FG% on those shots is a league-low. The omnipresent fear of Hawks ripping-and-stripping the ball away keeps the Boston offense looking harried as players think twice about putting the ball on the floor.
Thomas and Smart (five assists in 60 combined Game 2 minutes) must do a better job of feeding teammates in ideal positions to score quickly. Boston cannot thrive off of iso plays from Amir Johnson (6-for-9 2FGs in Game 2) and Evan Turner (5-for-10 2FGs in Game 2) alone. Head coach Brad Stevens may replace Smart with Turner, a solid passing wing, in the starting lineup in hopes of more consistent offensive results.
The Celtics guards must get the ball into Jared Sullinger (14 mostly ineffective minutes in Game 2, 2-for-5 FGs) and Johnson in the low post. Without touches and activity around the rim, the cherry-picking Sullinger will receive another short hook in favor of Tyler Zeller and Jonas Jerebko, the latter better capable of matching Horford’s floor-spreading arsenal. Kelly Olynyk (shoulder) remains highly questionable to appear in Game 3.
That old Massachusetts Mystique doesn’t just taint the perspective of Hawks fans. We’ve secretly replaced balanced perspective and analysis with CSN New England sports-yap host Michael Felger’s crystal-clear commentary. Let’s see if anyone can tell the difference!
“The Hawks will be the Hawks,” Felger bellowed back on Monday, with Atlanta holding a 1-0 lead in the series, uttered with an air of certainty that would give his team’s winking-bum logo a run for its money. No worries, Felger assured the Celtics faithful, because Atlanta will “fold when it matters.” Because, history, duh! And elfin’ magic! “We now turn to FS1 correspondent Curt Schilling,” is the only statement more certain to be uttered in the near future than “Hawks blow it in Beantown, again,” to hear Felger tell it.
Felger, his fellow Celtics fans, and the team they adore would do well to heed a voice from their fading past… although he’s not walking through that door anytime soon.
“We felt we were a better team than Atlanta,” said Larry Bird back after that 1988 Hawks victory. “Maybe that’s why we lost.”
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
