The Hawks team that everybody came to love seems to have gone through some genetic mutation, returning to the Hawks team everybody was trying to forget.
In one game, they couldn’t make a layup. In the next game, they couldn’t defend. That’s balance, kind of.
They have won two and lost two in a playoff series against an opponent most believed would go out in four or five — and in none of the four games have looked to be any semblance of a conference title threat, despite having easily the conference’s best record during the regular season.
“This is good for us,” Paul Millsap said late Monday night, reiterating the same amusing themes Tuesday. “It’s good for us to see where we’re at. It’ll makes us better. It builds character.”
There’s a problem with Millsap’s words, which reflect the Hawks’ current talking points: They assume too much. If the Hawks survive this early playoff test, go on to win this series and go deep into the playoffs, then it’s fair to suggest they somehow grew from this experience. But given the past two performances, there’s no reason to assume they’ll win the series, or even another game.
They lost two games in Brooklyn that in the past they would have won. They committed 34 turnovers, saw their shooting touch leave them in Game 3 and their on-ball defense fizzle (again) in Game 4. Kyle Korver, their go-to guy from outside the 3-point arc, made only four of 18 attempts in the two losses, including three consecutive in overtime of Game 4. The Hawks fumbled a 12-point lead in the third quarter and lost a game they led going into the fourth quarter for only the fifth time in 58 games.
Coach Mike Budenholzer said, “I don’t think there’s any undue pressure or lack of understanding of the importance of Game 5.”
It’s pretty clear. The loser of Wednesday’s game at Philips Arena will face elimination Friday in Brooklyn. If that’s the Hawks, duck.
It’s probably best that we reaffirm this now, so there’s no surprise later: The afterglow of regular-season success lasts only until the playoffs. The afterglow of playoff success can last forever.
If the Hawks blow this series, watch how quickly all of the goodwill that they have built over the past several months — on the court, not off — would evaporate.
During the regular season, this team showed the NBA world what a team playing clean, smart basketball can accomplish, even when it’s short on marquee value. But the Hawks’ play has been eroding for a while now, particularly since Thabo Sefolosha was lost for the season with a broken leg in a still-hazy, early-morning incident with police outside of a New York club. His loss has hurt the overall team defense and messed with player rotations.
The two losses in Brooklyn are feeding into the familiar tortured Atlanta sports-fan narrative: Same-old Hawks.
If the panic is excessive, this would be a good time for the Hawks to show it. But there are numbers to illustrate the offensive slide: Before the All-Star break, the team averaged 103.4 points on 47.1 percent shooting (38.9 from 3-point range). After the All-Star break: 100.9 points, 45.6 percent shooting, 36.4 percent on 3’s. The drops have continued in four playoff games: 98.3 points, 41.5 percent shooting, 33.1 percent.
There were mitigating factors in the second half of the season: Budenholzer rested starters in several games, and the Hawks didn’t have a lot to play for. But there’s no question the team has been out of rhythm and at times has lost focus at both ends of the court.
This isn’t to diminish the accomplishments of Deron Williams, who dropped in seven 3-pointers on the way to 35 points in his return from the abyss Monday. But what happened to the Hawks’ defense, particularly Jeff Teague’s? (Kent Bazemore had some success against Williams, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him get more minutes in Game 5.)
When asked after the game what happened in the fourth quarter, Teague gave a brief response: “Deron Williams made some shots. I’d talk to him.”
This would be a good time for a little self-reflection: Do the Hawks remember who they are or how they got here?
The Nets may be far better than the team most expected. But that doesn’t suggest the Hawks shouldn’t be far better than this.
Millsap again: “We have to look at ourselves in the mirror.”
They don’t like what they see.
About the Author
