Credit: Mark Bradley
Credit: Mark Bradley
What hope remained -- and not much did -- was all but extinguished at 3 p.m. Saturday. The Atlanta Hawks, who already trail Cleveland 2-0 having yet to play away from home in the Eastern Conference finals, announced that Kyle Korver will miss the remainder of the playoffs. That's just about all, folks.
Not that Korver was having a great postseason. He'd actually had a lousy one. (His 12 points in Friday's Game 2 were his first double-figure game since Game 2 in Round 2.) But he was still Kyle Korver, one of the world's best shooters, and attention had to be paid. Now the Cavs don't have to assign Iman Shumpert to run through screens; he can go pester somebody else.
It's uncanny -- actually, given that we're talking about an Atlanta team, it really isn't -- how quickly this series has unraveled. The Hawks led by nine points in the first quarter of Wednesday's Game 1. Then J.R. Smith got hot and they blew the lead and the game and saw DeMarre Carroll hurt to boot, and even with Carroll gutting it out in Game 2 they were beaten badly. And now Korver has been lost and, to borrow from esteemed former colleague Lewis Grizzard, I don't feel too good myself.
Down 2-0, the Hawks could still make this a series -- in theory, anyway. In reality, it's hard to imagine them forcing a Game 5. Sad, sadder, saddest.
From Sunday's AJC: A sunny Hawks season slams into reality.
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