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Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Worth all the hype!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - You can’t make this stuff up.
Underdog team pushes eventual champs to the brink in a first round playoff series, so what do they do for an encore?
Their first game the very next season is a thriller in the second week, they play an instant classic won by an All-Star with a clutch 20-footer with 0.5 seconds to play after the champs gave up a killer 3-pointer 6.5 seconds earlier that gave the upstarts what looked to be a chance to finally dethrone their nemesis on their home floor.
Now, the Hawks and Celtics will double-dip tonight in the second installment of The Game part 9 at Philips Arena with the Hawks having lost just once at home since last season’s rousing playoff series and the mighty Celtics, leading the league again this year, with a 15-game win-streak in tow.
Again, you simple cannot make this stuff up. It’s too rich.
Few games in the NBA regular season are worth the kind of hype being heaped upon these two teams.
This mini-drama is worth all the hype.
And while there are plenty of good feelings about the games played here in Atlanta, Marvin Williams explained why this matchup remains a major sticking point for the Hawks.
“The only thing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth is how we played for six games and then in Game 7 we really don’t even show up. They put the hammer down us on early,” he said. “We played them so well. All season we hadn’t won in Boston and all series we hadn’t won in Boston. We obviously knew we could play with them, though. The series was tied at 3-3. I just think in Game 7 we weren’t ready to play.”
I asked Williams and several of his fellow teammates who were tasting the playoff-rush for the first time if they thought their inexperienced in such situations might have caused the Game 7 meltdown, an obvious conclusion to draw after watching the entire thing up close.
It made sense to Josh Smith. But he also pointed out that the Hawks’ current rise was born out of the same series, making it the turning point that we all know it was.
“What really sticks out to me is just the way we pulled together.” Smith said. “When we were down 11 points going into the fourth quarter in Game 4 and LD [Hawks assistant coach Larry Drew] came up to me and put his arm around me and said, ‘This is when players are made. You’re the man when you’re up 11. Let’s see what happens when you’re down 11.’ We huddled up and got everybody involved. It started at the defensive end and it started with us playing together and the rest of the series went from there.”
Losing the rematch game Nov. 12 in Boston the way they did only served to stir the flames of this budding rivalry for the Hawks.
Williams canned that 3-pointer from the corner with just seconds to play, scaring the life out of the fans at TD Banknorth Garden and giving the Hawks’ fans everywhere a reason to believe they had finally figured out these Celtics in Boston, only to have Paul Pierce snatch that dream away with his crazy-big jumper with 0.5 seconds to play and the 103-102 win.
Up until then the Hawks had been perfect on the season. Smith, who missed that game with a high ankle sprain that didn’t even allow him to make the trip to Boston, watched in agony from Atlanta.
“Yeah, it hurt to miss the first game in Boston. There’s nothing like being out there with your team and helping them win,” he said. “I watched it on TV, and the game was so good and close up there. And we didn’t do that in the playoffs, so it was hard to miss that. But hearing those fans boo [Mike] Bibby and then he hit those 3-pointers and had them so worried about winning the game. It was exciting to watch. It shows you over and over again that situations like these are what the NBA is all about.”
And what this rivalry is all about.
