MVN - Most Valuable Network

Joe Johnson, Joe Johnson, Joe Johnson

There.  The title says it all.  The player of the game stunned the Celtics, with the Hawks winning 97-92.  Johnson was great.  Period.  He scored 35 points, 20 in the 4th quarter.  We have a new clutch player stepping up on to the NBA scene. 

The Celtics yielded a 10 point lead beginning the 4th quarter, losing by 5, thanks to Joe Johnson.  Suddenly, the Hawks-Celtics series is knotted at 2-2. Here’s a little Joe Johnson fix from the 1st quarter, but do not let this be a substitute for watching the 4th quarter.

I had to get Joe Johnson out of my system with the title of this blog, because he could have been Kobe Bryant and you wouldn’t have known the difference.  The one-time 1st round Celtic draftee was just that good.   He was the player of the day making 7 of 10 shots in the 4th quarter leading the Hawks to a come from behind 100-94 win against the Celtics. 

Josh Smith was damn good too - making  his free throws down the stretch (8 for 8 in the 4th), and some slick shot leading to 28 points, and playing spectacular defense with a Hawk playoff-setting record of 7 blocked shots tonight.  Perhaps Josh Smith will indeed be a legit candidate for Defensive Player of the Year in the future, as he certainly out-shined Kevin Garnett today on the defensive end.

Tommy Heinsohn was pretty disappointed in the officiating obviously, as the Pachulia and Garnett altercation in the 2nd quarter evidence the audacity of Garnett being tagged with a technical.

You also see the Hawks had a 33 to 18 free throw advantage for the game.  It clearly was an Atlanta Hawks home game tonight.  But, what hurts most, is that the Celtics didn’t make their free throws missing 8 of 18.  Who’s the veteran team here again?

Add missing lay-ups to the lame performance by the Celtics tonight.  Rondo may have put the team into a funk by missing a lay-up in the 2nd quarter.  Thank goodness he was at least attacking the rim.  The others just didn’t, and Atlanta appears to be in their heads. 

Where’s Tony Allen by the way, as I’m listening to Tommy Heinsohn’s post-game.  The Celtics need to match the Hawks athleticism better and Tony Allen would be a great step in that direction.  And Tony Allen knows how to attack the rim as good as any Celtic right now.

What really hurt on a couple of occasions is to give up an Atlanta transition after a missed lay-up (see Rondo) and the Celtics not thinking getting back after making some transitions baskets themselves (see Ray Allen’s 3-point immediately followed by a Johnson fast break).  We saw Kevin Garnett miss a lot of critical shots.  We saw Paul Pierce miss some would-be clutch shots.   And those missed free throws . . .

The Hawks made a comeback that the Celtics typically snuffed out all season.  But these are the playoffs and the Celtics, if they get through this series by winning the home games, have given every yahoo NBA team out there the confidence that they know they can be beat.

Good luck Celtics, because you have leveled the playing field and everyone’s gunning for you as an easy mark for an underdog series win against NBA’s best.  The Celtics look like the Dallas Mavericks of the East this year, and they will have to be more dominating on the road to lay claim to what every Celtics fan hopes they can achieve in these playoffs.  Celtics 17th championship.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Celtics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.