At this point, it’s probably best to set the expectations bar really low each game and then just hope Sybil doesn’t emerge at some point, smiling as her eyeballs roll back in her head and then speaking in some creepy voice, “Hey, watch this.”
Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. … Oh, sorry, ma’am in Row 7. … Clank, clank …
The Hawks scored 37 points in the first quarter Sunday and 63 points in the first half. The Washington Wizards weren’t playing defense so much as they were playing spectator. Maybe they just got comfortable sitting after all that time off following a first-round sweep.
Then the personality disorder that emerged in the Hawks’ first-round series against Brooklyn made an encore performance.
“We have to get better with the lead, man,” Kyle Korver said. “I don’t know exactly what it is or we would’ve fixed it by now. We get double-digit leads every game but we’re not able to hold on to them.”
The Hawks scored fewer points in the second half (35) than they did in the quarter (37).
Their shooting percentages by quarter: 63.6, 41.7, 33.3, 17.9.
This is when the therapist turns to you after an hour and says, “Yeah, I think we should meet next week.”
The Hawks lost the opener of their second-round series against Washington 104-98. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to come back to win the series, but this was a game they could have won, should have won. They led by 11 points early in the second quarter and 12 early in the third.
When Wizards guard Bradley Beal pulled up for a jumper with 10 minutes left to put Washington it ahead, 85-83, it was the first time the Hawks trailed since 9-7.
One narrative in the post-game was that the Hawks settled for jump shots too often. There was some truth to that. But the fact is the Hawks were missing open jumpers and layups.
Randy Wittman, the Wizards’ coach and former Hawks’ guard, said after the game: “In the second half we got better and better and better from the defensive standpoint.” But according to official NBA statistics, 53 of the Hawks’ 98 shots were uncontested. That’s not defense, that’s luck.
Jeff Teague was asked if the opponent was doing something defensively to throw off the Hawks’ offense. Answer: “No. We just missed shots.”
They missed every kind of shot imaginable. Players denied they were fatigued with less than two days off after eliminating Brooklyn on Friday night. If it wasn’t their legs, it was their eyesight.
There was a 24-second sequence with two minutes left when they missed six shots despite taking five offensive rebounds. That is neither a typo nor a joke.
Trailing 98-94 with 2:02 left, this happened: Al Horford missed an open jumper (Paul Millsap rebounded), Teague missed a three-point try (Horford rebounded), Horford missed a tip-in (Horford rebounded), Korver missed a three-pointer (Horford rebounded), Teague missed a layup (Horford rebounded), Horford missed a tip-in (Paul Pierce rebounded. No more chances for you!)
DeMarre Carroll, who scored 21 points in the first half but only three in the second half, said, “Maybe we fell in love with the 3 a little too much when we started missing (going 4-for-21). We probably should have attacked more.”
Probably. It’s that old, live by the jumper, die by the jumper thing. But it’s not as though the Hawks have been flawless on layups in these playoffs or they wouldn’t have been stretched to six games by the Nets.
When they played brilliantly for most of Game 6 in Brooklyn, there was a thought that maybe the regular-season, 60-win Hawks had returned. But those thought bubbles popped Sunday. The schizophrenic Hawks may be here to stay.
This seems like an appropriate time to bring up some ugly history. The Hawks haven’t won a second-round playoff series since 1958, when they were based in St. Louis. That includes 13 series since coming to Atlanta and a record of 15-53 (including Sunday).
Two weeks ago, Pierce, the Hawks’ thorn from his Boston days, told ESPN.com, “As good as Atlanta is, they just don’t give off that aura where we’re afraid of them.”
Not that the Wizards give off much of an aura, either, but it would be difficult to dispute Pierce’s comments. The Hawks have something to prove and the problem is they’re still only proving it some of the time. It varies from quarter to quarter.
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