Hawks Wake Up the Celtics 102-93
The Hawks played as if they belonged in the playoffs yesterday and the Celtics looked quite mortal going down 102-93 at the hands of a rejuvenated Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, Al Horford and Mike Bibby. The series now stands at 2-1 Celtics and those thoughts of a cake walk through Atlanta, if not a sweep, can be tossed out the window. It can be termed a wake up call for the Celtics who appeared not to match the Hawks intensity and desire in this one.
Bibby, Smith and Johnson shot a combined 10-18 from beyond the arc, and each of them had at least 6 assists. Johnson lead the Hawks with 27 points and Johnson had 23. Horford had his way in the paint collecting 14 rebounds, 17 points and 6 assists. Nice job by the rookie, but he may find himself in trouble in game 4 for some taunting of the Celtic veterans, yapping with Paul Pierce in the final minutes. Probably not too smart of move by the rookie.
The Celtics didn’t play that badly, although they appeared to be stuck in 1st gear compared to the Hawks. It was more that the Hawks approached perfection, moving the ball at will to find the open man, cashing in on some nice transition points too. It all seemed to happen in the 3rd quarter for the Hawks who pulled away from the Celtics with a 10 point lead, and held the Celtics scoreless for a 7 minute period.
What made the 3rd quarter especially odd was the following from the AP report:
The start of the second half was delayed by a malfunctioning shot clock. The clocks above both baskets were shut off, and the time was kept at the scoring table. Two air horn canisters were brought in to use if the 24 seconds expired, but the problem was finally fixed in the fourth.
It had to be weird with the announcers shouting 10 seconds, 5 seconds, etc., but theoretically there was no advantage to either team by this occurrence.
The Celtics have to regroup and take this Hawks team a bit more seriously knowing that they are playing hard at home. Folks, we have ourselves a series . . .
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4 Responses to “Hawks Wake Up the Celtics 102-93”
April 27th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Lets see how Al Horford re-acts when Pierce blows up for 60.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I expect a massive dismantling of the Hawks in game 4. Al Horford needs to be shown his place. I appreciate enthusiasm, but that looked more like the move a former #15 would do (Ron Artest). Bush league taunting.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hawk’s shooting percentages were threw the roof. Also, their adrenaline was running way to high at the start of the game. I did not see them having anything at the end but they did. Celtics could have put them away with out 6 minutes left in the 4th quarter but a couple dumb plays by Cossell stopped the rally. I think Celtics will win tonight due to the play up of Horford trash talk and some adjustments on Doc’s part.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Looking forward to the game tonight. I just think a veteran team is capable of putting the kibosh of a hot-shooting team if they themselves are on their game.
Horford did indeed give the Celtics some ammo for tonight - he abused Perkins so we know what Perk will be wanting to do. Big night for Perk would give the Celtics a lot of hope in their championship drive.
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