“C’mon, Al! Rebound it with your chest!”
Stealing away a win in Cleveland yesterday evening, the Atlanta Hawks will be feeling pretty good about themselves in front of a capacity crowd at Philips Arena. But they’ll have to be careful as tonight’s visitors, Al Horford and the Boston Celtics (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, NBC Sports Boston), and quite a few of the fans in the stands, are wearing crocodile green.
When he’s not getting posterized in his backyard by his kids, GM Danny Ainge is a busy man in the summertime. Coming off a top-seed and trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016-17, he and the Celtics spent the offseason selecting yet another plum draft pick, beefing up their front line, wooing Gordon Hayward from away from Salt Lake, and turning Isaiah Thomas, some assets, and Jae Crowder into NBA Finals dagger-specialist Kyrie Irving.
The momentum carrying Boston ever-closer to the NBA Finals seemed to take a cruel turn. Many a tear was shed on opening night in Cleveland, when Hayward tore up his lower leg trying to finish a questionable lob. With Hayward’s season cut short before it could really start, the Celtics would go on to lose to Kyrie’s old team, then dropped the next game one night later at home, succumbing to the Greek Freak. Just when the NBA world was beginning to sympathize with their plight, Boston used their crocodile tears as fuel to go on a tear.
The Celts (8-2) are gunning for their ninth consecutive victory tonight, after dusting off the Magic 104-88 last night to climb to 2-0 on their three-game road swing. Over the past two weeks alone, coach Brad Stevens’ club got revenge in Milwaukee, handled their business at home against the Kawhi-less Spurs, and stormed ahead in the fourth quarter in OKC to steal Paul George’s and Westbrook’s Thunder.
So far, the C’s are not yet moving the ball at a tempo amenable to Stevens’ liking (26th in NBA for pace), and they’re not shooting the rock exceedingly well (23rd in NBA for 2FG%, 21st in FT%). But what they have done exceptionally is neutering opposing offenses, their 94.7 D-Rating blowing away the field. Boston has been throttling foes at the perimeter (NBA-best 30.8 opponent 3FG%) and keeping them off the free throw line (19.0 opponent FTAs-per-48, 3rd-fewest in NBA). It’s unlikely that you’ll believe who is leading the defensive charge.
Kyrie looks longingly at the dust accumulating in his NBA trophy case. The 2012 Rookie of the Year is indeed grateful LeBron James returned to Cleveland and put him in position to excel on the brightest stage for the past few seasons. Alas, there are just two individual end-of-season honors on the shelf alongside Irving’s rookie award, and one was from winning the All-Star Game MVP in 2014, the season before LeBron returned to Ohio.
He was an All-NBA 3rd-Teamer in 2014-15, winning player of the week twice that season. And that was it, as far as season-ending accolades go. Irving’s craving as an NBA star to truly stand out, beyond James’ imposing shadow, without having to resort to flat-Earth tactics, was what prompted his appeal to have him moved, allowing him to help another team contend for the championship. And it has become apparent that one way he intends on being conspicuous, with Stevens’ help, is by changing the way he is viewed as a defensive player.
Kyrie enters today’s contest ranked #1 in the NBA with 2.4 steals per game. His 0.8 defensive win shares places him second league-wide, while his 93.8 D-Rating has him ranked 3rd in the league (min. 30 minutes/game, 5 games played), behind former ATLien Al-Farouq Aminu of Portland and one other Celtic with whom Hawks fans are, or should be, quite familiar.
About one week before NBA training camps opened, at a local-source burger joint in Atlanta’s Virginia-Highland neighborhood, an athletic 6-foot-10 man in a jumpsuit stood outside in the parking lot, probing through his phone while anxiously awaiting his to-go order. A five-foot-three lady approaches, but casually walks a full 270 degrees around him toward the front door. She and others chomping away at the busy eatery with the patio view had nary a notion that the gentleman was not simply some genetically-blessed guy who might play some roundball in his spare time.
The ability to enter the NBA as a rookie, even as a NBA lottery pick, and become a catalyst for a playoff run is an amazing rarity. To play a vital, occasionally heroic role in a near-decade’s worth of playoff appearances, for a franchise that had previously gone nearly a decade without appearing in any, likely deserves more merit than being treated like a random light pole in one’s former NBA home.
Change Al Horford’s body to that of Durant, LeBron, or Melo, or even Giannis, in their current or former places of employ, and cars would screech to a halt, casual on-lookers would be gawking and magnetized, scrambling for camera phones, prayerful for a selfie. But such is life for the unassuming Horford, who stood far from the comfort and security of his gleaming white Range Rover, having spent 20 minutes in and outside the Atlanta restaurant before a single acknowledger approached him for respectful small talk and a good-luck wish.
Building his reputation as a model of efficiency is what got Horford to where he was standing, the 11th-highest-paid NBA player that hardly anyone seems to know, or care to know. Atlanta sports fans succumb easily to the harsh outside criticisms of its star players – noodle arm, poor pocket footwork, can’t box out, can’t hit for average, horrid BBIQ, not a take-charge guy – and apply those critiques to render those players irredeemable.
Al never averaged more than 18 PPG over a full season in his nine years as a Hawk, and drew increasing heaps of scorn as his teams wilted in one demoralizing playoff exit after another. Not helping matters, the center’s defensive rebounding, or lack thereof, dwindled in each of his final four seasons here. When Atlanta couldn’t turn to the box scores to belie what we saw with The Eye Test, we deemed Horford irredeemable, unworthy of a full-max contract.
Now that he has taken his talents to Beantown, Everybody Loves Al. SB Nation Celtics writer Alex Kungu remarked yesterday on Twitter, in response to an observation that Horford is finally living up to his four-year, $113 million deal, “Al Horford always deserved his contract, he’s just now putting up counting stats that casual fans understand.” Indeed, the urge to look beyond “counting stats” was something Hawks-fan advocates from Buddy Grizzard to Kris Willis have urged for years. But that was to little avail, as Horford wasn’t yet playing in a sports town with decades of experience turning imperfect people into legends of lore.
Horford is flourishing into the player Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer hoped he would become under his watch. With Stevens and the Celtics staff overseeing his development, Al is shooting threes (career-high 33.0 3FGA rate), and hitting them (51.5 3FG%), as frequently as ever before. Just as significant, the dovetailing defensive rebounding effort has made a U-Turn. 8.7 D-Rebs per-36 would be blow away his career-best, back when he was a bicep-kissing 22-year-old in 2008-09.
That’s producing those “counting stats” that fantasy-infused onlookers love, like his third double-double of the season last night in O-Town. The on-ball defense, screening, and passing remain as sharp as ever, too. And he gets to play his long-desired position at the 4-spot for extended minutes, when free agent pickup Aron Baynes subs in.
The Celts’ most utilized 5-man lineup of Irving, the “Ohh! Jays” (ATLien Jaylen Brown, rookie Jayson Tatum), Horf, and Baynes is netting a positive +16.9 points per 100 possessions. Brown (15.8 PPG, 42.6 3FG%, 56.5 FT%) is coming into his own offensively, while Tatum’s old-man offensive game (13.6 PPG, 51.7 3FG%) is drawing raves. Recently returning forward Marcus Morris seems to be fitting into rotations like a glove, as well. Dennis Schröder’s Eurobasket co-star Daniel Theis leads a cast of additional rookies (Guerschon Yabusele, Semi Olejeye, Abdel Nader) who can shine in short stints of playing time.
Most players need to drop 50-plus points, dunk over unicorns, or shatter dusty league records, just to keep their teams in the running for victory every night. They might all look up, at All-NBA voting time, and find Al standing right alongside them. If his efficiency and proficiency hold through the season and well into the postseason, while getting promoted to the hilt in a ravenous sports market, Horford won’t be able to hide in plain sight much longer.
Luke Babbitt just flew into town and, boy, are his arms tired. Nearly 42 minutes of floortime, sinking four three-pointers and contributing across the board (17 points, one of seven Hawks in double figures, plus a steal and a block) as a starter from Babbs was everything the Hawks needed just to escape with a 117-115 win in Cleveland yesterday afternoon.
More yeoman’s work from Babbitt will be needed to keep the Hawks in the running with the deeper visiting club tonight. Expecting him to keep pace with Al borders on being unfair, so look for lots of pick-your-poison switches with Dewayne Dedmon, John Collins, and even small forward Taurean Prince guarding Horford, in hopes of enticing the seconds-siphoning jab-fakes that keep the ball out of play-finishers’ hands.
Irving (team-high 21.0 PPG) remains the league’s premier under-the-rim ballhandler and playmaker. But even with his newfound defensive exploits, he’ll have his hands full with Atlanta’s Schröder (28 points on 9-for-13 FGs at CLE on Sunday, 8-for-8 FTs, 9 assists, 6 TOs), the Demolition Man who bedeviled the excuse for defense presented by Kyrie’s former team.
Isaiah Taylor (14 points, 3 assists in 26 minutes on Sunday) has asserted himself splendidly as Schröder’s backup. But the Celtics will have superior on-ball defenders, in Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier, to compel Taylor to make plays outside the paint. The Hawks’ limited array of big men must execute screens without fouling, springing the point guards free until the Boston help defense contracts around the rim.
Schröder must make crisp decisions when granted access to the paint, while wings Prince (47.4 3FG%, 43.3 2FG%), Marco Belinelli (0-for-4 FGs, all 2FG attempts yesterday), and Kent Bazemore can’t hesitate to catch-and-shoot when they get the ball with a sliver of space. With both teams playing on the back end of a back-to-back, consistency in offensive execution by Atlanta (2-8) will be key to getting to triple digits on the scoreboard, something Boston has stopped opponents from achieving (no more than 94 points) in all eight of their wins.
Crocodile tears over Hayward’s injury have allowed Boston to get a jump on their sympathetic opponents and surge to the league’s best record through ten games. Carrying their underwhelming record and deflated expectations into this contest, Atlanta may be able to bottle those tears and use them to turn the tables on an unexpecting opponents and their supportive fans in the Philips Arena stands. Might croc tears be a useful ingredient in a possum pie?
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
