It would be wrong to call the Eastern Conference finals the series the world has awaited. For one thing, the NBA East is considered the JV bracket. For another, the top-seeded Hawks are viewed by the ESPN chattering class as a lesser obstacle to Cleveland than was Chicago. (Sure enough, Vegas lists the Hawks as underdogs.)
Only in this city does this upcoming best-of-seven stir the senses. As noted, the Hawks have never graced this particular round. As also noted, the Cavs have LeBron James — the best player since Michael Jordan, maybe the second-best ever — and the Hawks have nobody nearly as good. But the Hawks were, over the regular season, much the better team.
Which is why this series is so tantalizing — to us, if not the populaces of Peoria and Portland and Poughkeepsie. We’re about to learn if the criticisms levied against the Hawks hold water. Does the regular season really not matter? Can a very good team trump a great player? Were 60 wins built on shifting sand?
Call me crazy — others have — but I’m not sure the Hawks didn’t get lucky for the third time in these playoffs. In Round 1 they drew the sub-.500 Nets, who were gifted enough to make things difficult but too unsound to win a series. In Round 2 the Wizards lost John Wall for three games. In Round 3 the Cavs will be working without Kevin Love and perhaps without Kyrie Irving, and they constitute two-thirds of the latest tailored-for-LeBron Big Three.
Call me crazy, but the Bulls appeared a tougher matchup. They likewise had injury issues — in this postseason, who hasn’t? — and didn’t run much of an offense, but they were big and they defended. Without Love, the Cavs aren’t as big, and over the regular season they ranked 20th among NBA teams in defensive efficiency.
They got better at guarding — better at everything, actually — after two January trades brought center Timofey Mozgov and wings J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert. On Jan. 13, the Cavs were 19-20; they went 34-9 thereafter. They’re 8-2 in postseason. Still, LeBron’s new-and-improved crew arrived at Philips Arena on March 6 and were beaten 106-97.
Yeah, that was the regular season — which doesn’t count, as the Bristol-based conglomerate constantly reminds us — but it was the only meeting of the Hawks and the remodeled Cavs. We can’t count on LeBron making almost twice as many turnovers (nine) as baskets (five) again, but the Hawks made 14 more hoops than the visitors. They got whatever they wanted.
The Hawks’ offense hasn’t functioned to specification in the playoffs. They beat Washington despite making 42.4 percent of their shots and 32.9 percent of their 3-pointers; Kyle Korver averaged 4.3 points over the final four games, all of which hinged on last-second shots. The Cavs can run Shumpert and Smith at Korver, and if he can’t shake free — he could never shake the Wizards’ Bradley Beal — the Hawks won’t win the series.
But the Wizards were a better defensive team — fifth in efficiency over the regular season — than the Cavs have been. We shouldn’t give Cleveland too much credit for a playoff clampdown: Its Round 1 opponent was too-young Boston, and in Round 2 it faced clunky Chicago. We don’t yet know if these Cavs can defuse the pace-and-space Hawks.
In a way, losing Love could bolster the Cavs: He’s a poor defender who couldn’t have handled Paul Millsap or Al Horford. But the absence of his scoring and Irving’s various leg ailments thrust an even heavier burden on LeBron, who’s 30. Counting playoffs, he has worked 1,079 NBA games. Millsap, who’s six weeks younger, has worked 754.
In Game 4 against Chicago, LeBron demanded the last shot and made it. In Game 5 he scored 38 points. In Game 6 he managed 15. For the series, he made 39.9 percent of his shots — he was 9-for-29 before hitting the Game 4 winner — and now he’ll have to wrestle DeMarre Carroll.
There’s a chance LeBron will call back the years and win the series by himself. There seems a better chance that the team with more ways to score will start hitting. And Game 7, lest we forget, would be staged here. Ergo, Hawks in seven.
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