Almost a year ago, these fallible fingers sought to make the case as to why the smooth-running Hawks would reach the NBA finals. They had four All-Stars. They had pace-and-space. They had the league’s coach of the year. They held the East’s No. 1 seed. What else did they need?
Er … a superstar?
The smooth-running team that once seemed capable of breaking the pattern has become another bit of evidence as to why the pattern exists. There’s a reason the team with LeBron James has won the Eastern Conference every year since 2010. There’s a reason the Hawks are 0-9 against LeBron and his various supporting casts in playoff games since 2008. As talented as they have been and remain, they’ve never had a LeBron.
That’s not a badge of dishonor. Only two organizations have employed LeBron. But we saw in Monday’s Game 1 what we’ve seen ever since the Hawks started making the playoffs again – when games need finishing, it helps to have Mariano Rivera.
“I’m a firm believer that you need a closer when it gets tight,” said Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue, who was a Hawk when they weren’t making the playoffs. “Someone who can make the right play and get the ball to the right people.”
The Hawks had a chance to steal Game 1 on a night when they'd trailed by 11 points after one quarter, by 10 after two and by 18 midway through the third. Only one of their starters – Kent Bazemore, the one who hasn't been an All-Star – had much of a game. The other four missed 32 of 42 shots. The starting guards combined for two baskets. And still they led by a point with 4:28 to play.
Here’s what LeBron did over the final 4:28: Fed J.R. Smith for the outrageous 3-pointer over Kyle Korver that gave Cleveland a lasting lead; stole the ball from Dennis Schroder; missed a jump shot; scored off Kyrie Irving’s pass and made the free throw to make it a seven-point lead; stole a Schroder pass; missed a layup when Al Horford smacked him in the head; made a layup to make it 99-90.
By LeBron standards, he had an OK night – 25 points on 11-of-21 shooting, seven rebounds, nine assists, five steals, four turnovers. But he was LeBron when he needed to be, and the Hawks, who have no LeBron, wound up asking a 22-year-old substitute to outduel the best player of his generation.
If not for Schroder, the Hawks might have lost by 30. A guy seated in Section 128 took to screaming, “Stop switching!” when the guard from Germany with the streak in his hair and fleet in his feet kept raining 3-pointers. He scored 27 points and made six assists in 29 minutes. But only once before – in Game 4 against Washington last May – had he worked 29 minutes in a postseason game.
Schroder was so weary that he asked out with six minutes left. (He sat for 61 seconds.) He’d done the heavy lifting. Wasn’t it time for someone else, one of the All-Stars, to take over? Apparently not. Over the final four minutes, Schroder missed three shots and made two turnovers. In Game 1, the Hawks asked a non-starter to be their LeBron.
“Growing pains,” Bazemore called the Hawks’ late-game failures, but here we note: Korver and Paul Millsap are on the high side of 30; Horford turns 30 on June 3; Jeff Teague turns 28 on June 10. These guys have graced a lot of playoff games and been together a while. This is essentially the group that rendered the whole superior to the sum of its parts over the 2014-2015 regular season. Postseason games, however, tend to come down to talent.
Cleveland has LeBron. The Hawks have complementary parts who haven't been overly complementary against LeBron's team. At practice Tuesday, the Hawks insisted they'd learned from Game 1 and will be better in Game 2, and maybe they will. Maybe they'll prove they don't need a closer. Or maybe they'll keep proving they do.
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